At the southernmost end of Duke Street, flanked by humble bungalow-style abodes and colonial revival mansions, sit two houses that don’t quite square with their surroundings.

In fact, they are perfectly round.

But by this winter, the identical circular houses, which have overlooked the busy thoroughfare for 60 years, will no longer be twins.

A new owner is building a conventional addition onto the rear of the house at 1013 S. Duke St., introducing the house’s first corners.

“We’ve got a round house,” Bruce Mitchell, an artist from Carrboro, recalls saying to his architect when he purchased the house in May. “Let’s add a square studio.”

Mitchell said he chose Durham not only for the unique house, but also for the city’s budding arts community.

“For a painter, Durham is where it’s at,” Mitchell said. “The city of Durham itself — through the Durham Art Guild and the Durham Arts Council — seems to understand the importance of the creative class.”

Eager to join that community, Mitchell transferred his studio to the house in the summer and plans to continue working there until construction is completed this winter.

Gutted and drafty, little remains in the house — a laptop sitting on an island of retro salmon-colored cabinets, an “Impeach Bush” sign in the front window and Mitchell’s makeshift studio, where he works on a painting of King Auto Parts on Route 70 in Hillsborough to the rhythm of hammers and the warmth of a space heater.

The front room resembles a healthy slice of a pie with a bite taken out of the right side where the dining room will be. Drawings tacked on the wall show how Mitchell plans to attach his 20-by-20 foot studio to the existing circle, a scant 37 feet in diameter — just a little more than 1,000 square feet.

The roof over the addition will be about 10 feet higher than the original roof and will cover the studio and a 12-by-16-foot connector room.

When workers began construction in October, Mitchell learned that the five-room house, which had been vacant for a year, was in worse condition than he expected.

The rounded walls, constructed with two layers of concrete blocks, were structurally sound, but the original flat roof, leaking and creaking beneath several tons of tar patching, had to be entirely rebuilt.

In addition to the problems associated with furnishing a round house, the circle poses a particular challenge when it comes to measuring for renovations, said James Morgan, the architect who helped Mitchell design his addition.

“You can’t pull [measuring] tape from the corners, because there aren’t any,” Morgan said.

In 1947, long before anyone talked about “building green,” prominent Durham architect Archie Royal Davis designed the houses as an experiment in energy efficiency, according to Jeff Essen, who sold the house to Mitchell.

Essen purchased the house in 1985 and lived in it for a few years before converting it to a rental property. But it proved difficult to rent, Essen said, and he was glad to sell it to an owner who intended to live there.

Because the interior walls were also built with concrete blocks, they have a high thermal mass, which reduces internal temperature swings, said Essen, adding that his heating and air-conditioning costs were low when he lived in the house.

Not a totally new thing

Architects have experimented with round, octagonal- and polygonal-shaped houses since the mid-19th century.

One of the most famous was inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller, said Morgan. Fuller pioneered the idea of an entirely self-sufficient house when he unveiled the model of his round Dymaxion House in 1928.

In theory, a circular structure requires less material and has less surface area through which heat could escape.

“It’s a notion that comes back periodically,” Morgan said. “It was popular in the counter-culture in and around Chapel Hill.”

It is not clear why Davis chose this spot for his round houses, but Daniel Addison, a former employee of Davis, offers one theory.

Addison, who worked for Davis as a draftsman from 1957 to 1969, said Davis told him that a developer requested the circular design to dodge restrictive building codes imposed by either the city or the neighbors.

“There was some dispute with the neighbors when the round houses were done,” said Addison, 69, who still lives in Durham and runs a design business. “I remember Davis saying he did this as sort of an ‘I’ll show you’ gesture, but I don’t recall any more than that.”

Steve Cruse of the City-County Planning Department is skeptical.

“Durham got its first zoning ordinance back in those days — in the ’30s and ’40s — but that doesn’t sound true to me,” said Cruse, explaining that he could not think of a code that would prohibit a square, but not a round structure.

Essen agrees.

“[The idea was to be] energy efficient and, I think, a whim,” said Essen. “This builder wanted to do something different.”

Because the round houses are in one of Durham’s seven historic districts — the Morehead Hill Historic District, established in 1985 — the city’s Historic Preservation Commission must approve all plans for construction and renovation, Cruse said.

“We don’t want to fool people into thinking that the addition is part of the original structure,” he said, adding that the Commission is most likely to approve projects on the backs of buildings.

Although Mitchell began construction about a month ago, Cruse said the building inspector should not have issued the permit because the Commission has not yet approved the addition on Mitchell’s property.

Mitchell said that he is quite sure his general contractor took care of getting approval for the addition.

“As far as historic preservation goes, it’s better to save some of it than none of it,” said Mitchell, who said he consulted with Preservation Durham, a nonprofit group that protects Durham’s historical sites. “I’m kind of rescuing it from the rent market.”

Although the Commission can delay demolition on historic properties for up to a year, the city is ultimately powerless if a property owner wants to tear down an old building, Cruse said.

Mitchell said the construction will end up costing about as much as the property, which he purchased for $150,000, according to county tax records.

Mitchell has saved money by tackling many of the design problems himself. One challenge, he said, was fitting appliances into a kitchen with only one flat wall.

Mitchell downloaded a free program called Google SketchUp to create more than 40 potential layouts for his kitchen.

“I ended up with the classic range-sink-refrigerator triangle,” he said.

Two doors down, Catherine Overman watches the construction from the other round house, which she shares with a Great Dane, a retriever mix and two cats. She has dreamed of building an addition since she moved in seven years ago.

“It’s sort of fun to be living vicariously through what he’s doing,” said Overman, who recalls driving by the round houses as a child. “I’m sort of sad, but, at the same time, now only I have the true round house.”

source:thedurhamnews.com

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