1950
The George and Beth Paschal House
3334 Alamance Drive, Raleigh NC
3340 square feet, built by Seby Jones of Davidson and Jones. Destroyed in 2013. Photos by George Smart and Charles Uzzell. During WWII, George Paschal became engaged to Beth Eleanor Cummings, the associate editor of The Farm Journal, a magazine published in Philadelphia. Born in Lohrville, Iowa, in 1917, she grew up in Ames and received her Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics and Journalism from Iowa State University in 1939. The couple married in 1944. Two years later, with the war over, they decided to leave Philadelphia for Raleigh. After failing to find an existing house on the market in Raleigh that pleased them, the Paschals decided to build a new house. Beth Paschal called Dean Henry Kamphoefner (a fellow Iowan) at the newly formed NC State School of Design to ask his recommendation for an architect. Kamphoefner told her that professors at the School of Design were encouraged to design a house periodically, and he sent her a number of books on modern architecture. When she had finished looking through them, Beth Paschal and Dean Kamphoefner talked and Kamphoefner recommended James Fitzgibbon, an associate professor at the School, to design the Paschal house. The design process for the Paschal House involved a number of meetings between Fitzgibbon and the Paschals to review his plans, receive comments, and discuss suggestions from the clients. For example, it was George Paschal's idea to have a circular driveway at the front of the house. And he wanted a separate, covered, outside entrance to his study that would enable him to return from late-night house calls without disturbing the family or being exposed to the weather. The Paschals both wanted a house that would bring the outside in, and that would be all on one level. The irregular rectangular mass of the house presents two different faces: the (north) Alamance Road side, which is a mostly closed, picturesque composition of stone walls and multiple, low-sloped gables with deep overhangs; and the (south) rear elevation, which is comprised of expanses of glazed walls set under a single large gable. The central focus of the interior is a dramatic, high-ceilinged living room arranged in a Frank Lloyd Wright fashion around a massive central fireplace with a sunken hearth. With glazed walls on both sides of the room, the thin planes of the roof appear to float over the space and it is possible to look completely through the living room to the treetops beyond. The house is oriented to the sun, making best use of passive solar climate control. The carefully detailed interior spaces of the house are finished with warm, natural-finished veneered plywood paneling, cork flooring, and substantial amounts of gray/tan Wake County granite random ashlar stonework. The house retains the integrity of its setting, materials, workmanship, and ambience. The Paschal House is set well back from the street at the edge of a plateau. The land drops behind it in a mostly wooded slope to Pasquotank Road on the south. Mature hardwood trees along the sides of the property seclude it from adjacent houses. Two low, elemental stone lanterns flank the entrance drive to the lot from Alamance Road. The broad, circular driveway just inside the entrance encloses five large live oak trees that offer shaded parking for a dozen cars. Also within the trees is a brick-paved walkway lined with carefully trimmed shrubs that form an inner ring, at the south end of which are additional elemental stone sculptures. The house takes on a different appearance when viewed from the street (north) or from the terrace (south) side. On the street side, the building is defined by a series of very low-sloped gable roofs with deeply cantilevered eaves over random ashlar stone walls. A gabled porte cochere, screened by a stone end wall, projects from the front of the house. Behind the porte cochere are two artisanal wooden gates (fabricated at the NCSU School of Design) that open into a small, walled courtyard set before the kitchen/dining room wing on the right, and into an atrium at the center. The flag-stoned atrium is open to the sky and provides light for the windows of the kitchen and the office that open into it, and to the glazed wall of the house's main corridor. At the back of the atrium, adjacent to the main entrance to the house, is a rectangular pool fed from the roof drainage at the junction between two gables, providing a waterfall when it rains. This pool is the only survivor of three small pools in the original design. The other two, located adjacent to the master bedroom and near the front entrance to the house, were filled in to protect the Paschals' three children. At the west end of the house is a large kitchen with adjacent utility rooms, behind which is the dining room. At the east end of the house is the office/bedroom wing, which contained George Paschal's study and the master bedroom on the front, with bathrooms and two additional bedrooms at the rear. Adjacent to the master bedroom, at the east end of the house, is a stone-paved terrace shielded from the street by an angled stone wall. In typical Modernist fashion, the focal point of the interior, and its largest space, is the living room. Its high, sloped ceiling comes to a peak at a corner of the central feature of the room, a massive random ashlar stone fireplace. The breast of the fireplace creates most of the north wall of the space, stepping down to form a divider between the hall to the north of it and the living room. Its expansive, brick-based firebox, located on a corner of the fireplace, is in an L-shaped, stepped, "conversation pit" depressed below the main floor level -- another detail borrowed from Frank Lloyd Wright. Set in the chimney breast, adjacent to the firebox, is a section of a petrified tree trunk from the Sahara desert that George Paschal brought back from North Africa during World War II. Half of the east wall and the entire rear wall of the living room are glazed from floor to ceiling. Relatively slender posts support the broad expanse of the roof, joined by a narrow cross member above head height. This light framework contains an irregular pattern of large panes of glass set in thin mullions, making the roof plane appear to float above the living room. At the north side of the room, the intersection of two gable roofs is filled with a large, triangular window that frames views of the treetops beyond. These substantial areas of glazing on both sides of the living room give the space a transparency that makes it possible to look entirely through the house from rear to front. Future Raleigh Mayor Seby Jones of Davidson & Jones Construction Company built the house between 1949 and 1950. So dramatically different was this house from other residences in Raleigh that it attracted a large number of curious onlookers. The Paschals moved into the house before it was completely finished, prompting encounters with people who continued to drive through the property or come in through the windows. Frank Lloyd Wright toured the house when he came to NC State University in 1950 as a visiting lecturer. He commented afterwards that the Paschal house "did the cause of modern architecture good." Renowned California architect Harwell Hamilton Harris FAIA, who taught at NC State University's School of Design, deemed the Paschal House one of the finest examples of mid-century modern residential design in the South. Frank Harmon, Professor of Practice at NCSU and architect of the AIA North Carolina building in Raleigh said in 2012: "In many ways, it's the cutting edge of architecture today. You hear a lot about sustainability: using local materials, natural heating and cooling. And here is a building that's been doing it for more than 50 years. I personally think this is, flat out, the greatest modern house in North Carolina." Recalls Wilmington architect Charlie Boney, "during my last year in the [NCSU] school of Architecture the Fitzgibbon/Paschal house was a very interesting example of good creative architecture. Fitzgibbon, at the time was audacious, and I wondered how he got the client to go along with his interesting features of the interior design. 'It is no secret,' he said. 'I had the lady of the house help me design the linen closets and she was involved with measuring all of the sheets and towels, while I went about designing those features that could have been controversial.' I was so interested in the house that every weekend I would take my date before dinner to see what "new" had been produced during the week. Fortunately, my date thought it was an interesting house also. Fitzgibbon produced a wonderful piece of Architecture, for an obviously wonderful and supportive client." The house was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Alone there for a number of years after George Paschal passed away, Beth Paschal moved out in early 2007. She died in 2009. Her heirs, children Robert, George, and Huston, inherited the property and put it on the market for over $5M, an exceptionally high price even back then. There were no offers at that price. The heirs insisted on selling all the acreage to one party, refusing to subdivide off the iconic house. Since 2008, Preservation North Carolina unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the heirs to subdivide the lots and sell the house separately, insuring the building's future while still bringing the family a strong return. Despite many attempts by NCModernist, Preservation North Carolina, and others to bring attention and willing buyers, the heirs refused to rent, allow tours, or even permit a design competition to create new preservation options. As time went by, and the price stayed atmospheric, the heirs chose to leave their childhood home vacant, unmaintained, and unoccupied. In late 2011, the price was reduced to a still-high $3.3 million. The heirs maintained the house was unrecoverable, which was untrue. There were significant but fixable problems. $350,000-450,000 would have been sufficient, said architect Frank Harmon. He said, "the Paschal House is definitely savable. Compact, high capacity HVAC systems can be integrated into the existing structure with little visual impact. James Fitzgibbon, known for his use of innovative materials, would be delighted to see his design restored with the latest technology. The house will be spectacular when renovated." In the early fall of 2012, the heirs solicited a deconstruction bid from Habitat. This had TMH lead an online petition drive which garnered over 400 signatures. As of late 2012, the heirs began prohibiting real estate agents from showing the house. Despite having several serious parties in early 2013 wanting to buy the house and invest in repair, on Friday, March 1, the heirs had it destroyed by a private demolition contractor. The house was hauled to the dump, and the land was divided into five parcels with houses in the $2M+ range. The News and Observer also reported on the demolition.
