Custom home, addition, and renovation design for Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Historic-district comfortable, wooded-lot fluent, and drawn for how the house actually gets used.
Usually within one business dayA reply to every request
Historic districtReviewed before we submit
Designed for Chapel Hill
Four kinds of Chapel Hill, four detailing languages.
Chapel Hill has layers. The historic district off Franklin Street, the 1950s ranches in Coker Hills and Glen Lennox, the wooded lots off Mt. Carmel Church Road, the newer neo-traditional Southern Village and Meadowmont blocks. Each one wants a different detailing language, a different relationship to the street, and a different approach to the addition or new build.
Our core work for Chapel Hill clients is sensitive additions and renovations on the older stock, custom homes on the larger wooded lots, and outdoor living tied into the native landscape.
Wooded Chapel Hill lots reward slow site work. We map the trees worth keeping, read the slope, and set the foundation to minimize grading. The house that comes out of that process tends to sit better on the lot than one sited for convenience.
Scope
Additions, homes, outdoor
Permit office
Chapel Hill Historic District Commission
Fee
Fixed before we start
Reply
One business day
Recent work nearby
Great room design, The Meridian Residence.
Custom estate design, The Meridian Residence.
Neighborhoods we know
Chapel Hill neighborhoods we serve
Meadowmont
Southern Village
Westwood
Gimghoul
Franklin Hills
Coker Hills
Glen Lennox
Briar Chapel (Chatham)
Governors Club
Chandler's Green
Morgan Creek
Carrboro core
The permit path in Chapel Hill
We work inside the city path, not around it.
We take on historic district submittals where the design has to pass Historic District Commission review before it can permit.
Window lites, trim profiles and materials are reviewed against the guidelines before we submit.
Structural, civil and energy partner stamps are coordinated so the package lands complete on the first submittal.
The same reading of the code we publish for builders. The NC Code and Permit Guide covers the chapters a residential permit set answers to, written in plain language.
We work inside the Chapel Hill Historic District Commission review cycle. Window lites, trim profiles, and materials reviewed against the guidelines before we submit.
Wooded-lot design.
A lot of Chapel Hill sits on mature hardwood lots with slope. We site the house, the driveway, and the outdoor rooms around the trees that stay, not the ones that go.
Additions that feel original.
Most Chapel Hill work is an addition or rework, not a teardown. The goal is a house that reads as one house, not a main structure with a bolt-on wing.
Energy and daylight first.
Orientation, glazing ratio, overhangs, and insulation strategy drawn into the schematic set, not bolted on at permit.
Partner engineering stamps.
Structural, civil, and energy partners coordinated against the drawings so the permit package lands complete on the first submittal.
3D before construction.
Photoreal renderings and walkable 3D models tied to the construction drawings. You see the addition from the street before the contractor bids it.
The next step
Planning a Chapel Hill project?
Book a 30-minute consult. Historic district, Southern Village, a wooded acre off 15-501, or a Carrboro bungalow. We will tell you what we would do and what it costs to get there.
