__NOTOC__ Hope Valley was the first full-fledged

country club A country club is a privately owned club, often with a membership quota and admittance by invitation or sponsorship, that generally offers both a variety of recreational sports and facilities for dining and entertaining. Typical athletic offer ...

community in the suburbs of

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...

Durham County, North Carolina Durham County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 324,833, making it the sixth-most populous county in North Carolina. Its county seat is Durham, which is the only incorporated mu ...

. It is developed around an 18-hole Donald Ross

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

course. Created in 1925-26 just before the

stock market crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

, Hope Valley remained a unique rural colony until after World War II. Well outside the city limits Hope Valley was situated between Durham and Chapel Hill, and their university campuses, Duke and UNC Chapel Hill. It was one of North Carolina's first suburbs designed to be completely serviced by the automobile, well beyond urban transportation routes. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2009 as the Hope Valley Historic District, a national

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

Hope Valley Historic District

The district encompasses 80 contributing buildings, 1 contributing site, and 2 contributing objects in a predominantly upper-class residential section of Durham. They were built between 1927 and 1959 and include notable examples of

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

and

Tudor Revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

style architecture. The centerpiece of the district is the

and golf course. Located in the district is the separately listed Wiley and Elizabeth Forbus House.

History

Hope Valley's original developers were Jesse Mebane of

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in the Un ...

and Walter Sharpe of

Burlington, North Carolina Burlington is a city in Alamance County, North Carolina, Alamance and Guilford County, North Carolina, Guilford counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the principal city of the Burlington, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Are ...

(Mebane and Sharpe, Inc.). Early investors included many local residents and Greensboro's Richardson Family (Richardson - Vicks Pharmaceuticals) who later took control of the development and renaming the corporation Hope Valley, Inc. In a rare collaboration, Donald Ross,

Aymar Embury II Aymar Embury II (June 15, 1880 – November 15, 1966) was an American architect. He is best known for commissions from the City of New York from the 1930s through to the 1950s. In this period, Embury frequently worked with Robert Moses in t ...

, and Robert Cridland came together to create Hope Valley. Ross designed the 18 hole golf course, Embury designed the French Eclectic style Country Club Clubhouse, and Cridland designed the roadways and landscape. The Hope Valley Country Club (HVCC) golf course has undergone a multimillion-dollar renovation and restoration, with a major focus on its greens. The Hope Valley Country Club created by a collaboration of the development's original backers and Durham business leaders has been the careful steward of this Donald Ross "Gem" for over 80 years. The first golf professional was Marshall Crichton (1926-1960) and the course has had a member of the Crichton family on staff ever since. In the Spring of 2013 HVCC completed a renovation of its swimming pools and surrounding wet areas. The club also has an active year-round tennis program with seven clay courts and two hard courts. The neighborhood is experiencing infill as retiring and moving residents sell their side lots, mid-century ranches and investment properties. There have also been some (tragic) examples of "tear down" purchases. The homes of some of Durham's first and second generation business, education and social leaders including Russell Barringer, Frank Kenan, Herschel Caldwell, Wilburt Davison, and John Moorhead have been razed for new residential construction. The Hubert Teer House, a Hope Valley landmark from 1932, is well known for the exact miniature model of it that Mr. Teer built on the grounds as a playhouse for his daughter. It underwent a significant and sympathetic restoration by its current resident Mr. Teer's above-mentioned daughter and her husband prior to 2002. The Hope Valley neighborhood is often referred to as "Old Hope Valley", with a relative absence of newly constructed homes with the vast majority of houses situated on lots that are considerably larger than those in newer, close-by developments (including the adjacent areas of "New Hope Valley", and Marydell, Woodcroft and Hope Valley Farms)--some as much as four acres. Many areas in Hope Valley are heavily wooded and are home to deer, foxes, red-shouldered hawks and barred owls. Hope Valley is convenient to Chapel Hill, Research Triangle Park, Raleigh Durham Airport, Cary and Raleigh via I-40 (3 miles South).

Murder investigation

In April 2018, real estate developer Bill Bishop was found murdered in his Hope Valley home on Dover Road.

Notable buildings

* John C. and Binford Carr House * Wiley and Elizabeth Forbus House

Notable residents and country club members

* Vernetta Alston, politician and attorney * Bill Bishop, real estate developer and murder victim * Victor Dzau, scientist and former head of Duke Medical Center *

Douglas Knight Douglas Maitland Knight (June 8, 1921 – January 23, 2005) was an American educator, businessman, and author. He was a former professor of literature at Yale University prior to his presidency at Lawrence College from 1954 to 1963. Stemming from h ...

, academic and former head of Duke University *

Mena Webb Wilhelmena Katherine Fuller "Mena" Webb (April 26, 1915 – May 23, 2012) was an American writer and editor. She taught writing classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Evening College, was a columnist and society editor at ' ...

, journalist and writer

References

* Donald Ross and his Total Gem - John Moorhead - HVCC MGA, 2000 * Preservation Durham Historic Home Tour Book - Farm to Green, Old Hope Valley, an Early Garden Suburb - 2002 * Preservation Durham Historic Home Tour Book - Crown to Club, Hope Valley - 2010 * Various newsletters Hope Valley Neighborhood Association - "Down in the Valley" - hvna.org * Southern Historical Collection - Wilson Library - UNC Chapel Hill - Smith Richardson Papers * Durham Collection - Durham County Public Library - Hope Valley Collection, Hope Valley Garden Club Collection * Perkins Bostock Library, Duke University - Durham Morning Herald microfilm files, 1925 - 1929 * Historic Preservation Society of Durham - The Durham Historic and Architectural Inventory - 1982 * Syracuse University Special Collections - Aymar Embury II papers * Tufts Archives - Pinehurst NC * Robert D. Cridland - "Practical Landscape Gardening" various printings
Hope Valley Country Club

External links

Hope Valley Neighborhood Association
{{National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Neighborhoods in Durham, North Carolina Sports venues in Durham, North Carolina Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Colonial Revival architecture in North Carolina Tudor Revival architecture in North Carolina Buildings and structures in Durham, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Durham County, North Carolina 1926 establishments in North Carolina Populated places established in 1926