517 E. FRANKLIN ST. / COLLIER COBB HOUSE

Built in 1893-1894 on land Collier Cobb purchased from Charles Phillips' widow (and relative of Cobb's wife's), Laura Caroline Battle, in September 1893 [1]. An addition to the west side of the original house was built sometime between 1900 and 1915 [2]. Collier Cobb may have given or sold the house to his son, Collier Cobb, Jr. in 1924 [3], moving to a newer house in/at Cobb Terrace.

The garage to the east of the house was built between 1915 and 1925 [4].

View north east, April 28, 1896 (photo by Collier Cobb, via the Collier Cobb Photographic Collection, UNC)

View north east, circa 1915 (photo by Collier Cobb, via the Collier Cobb Photographic Collection, UNC)

December 1915 Sanborn map excerpt

View north west, unknown date (photo by H. P. Brinton, via NC State Archives, via Steve Stolpen)

View north, December 2021 (via Google Streetview)

From the 2015 Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase and  Additional Documentation NRHP form:

"An impressive example of the Queen Anne style, this one-and-a-half-story, gable-and-wing house is four bays wide and triple-pile with a side-gabled roof and a projecting, front-gabled wing on the right (east) end of the façade. The house has plain weatherboards, sixteen-over-one wood-sash windows with molded lintels, pedimented gables and dormers (with the exception of the front-gabled dormer on the façade), half-round sawn vents in the gables, and two interior brick chimneys. Windows in the frontgabled wing include a tripartite window at the first floor and a Palladian window at the second floor, each with Gothic-arched panes in the upper sashes. The one-light-over-two-panel door has three-lightover-one-panel sidelights, a three-light transom, and a molded lintel. There is an oculus window to the left (west) of the door and both are sheltered by an inset porch cut out of the front left (southwest) corner of the front-gabled wing and is supported by a square posts with decorative molding. A flat-roofed porch extends across the left two bays of the façade sheltering a pair of eight-light-over-one-panel doors on the far left end of the façade. This porch is supported by square posts and has a sloping railing and a railing at the roofline that encircles a second-floor deck accessed via paired eight-over-one-light-over-one-panel doors and a sixteen-over-one windows in a wide front-gabled dormer that is partially inset into the firstfloor porch roof. There is a shallow, shed-roofed dormer to the right of the front-gabled dormer with a fixed ten-light window. There are pedimented gabled dormers on each side of the front-gabled wing and a one-story, hip-roofed projecting bay on the right elevation with nine-over-one windows on all three sides. A modern deck wraps around the right rear (northeast) corner of the house."

For 2015 photos of the interior of the house, see: longandfoster.com/homes-for-sale/517-E-Franklin-Street-Chapel-Hill-NC-27514-154783704

ENDNOTES

[1] Orange County deed book 53, page 426

[2] Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase and  Additional Documentation NRHP form, 2015; 1915 Sanborn map of Chapel Hill

[3] Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase and  Additional Documentation NRHP form, 2015

[4] Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase and  Additional Documentation NRHP form, 2015; 1915 Sanborn map of Chapel Hill; 1925 Sanborn map of Chapel Hill