Ginna Allen
News Editor
In early September, the University announced that 195 North Carolina Avenue is the first in a series of on-campus homes going up for sale exclusively to faculty and staff. The home on North Carolina Avenue was given to the University by its former residents, retired professor Brown Patterson (C ’53, H ’12) and his wife, Evie. “My family would be honored to have another full-time Sewanee family continue on in this house,” said one of the Pattersons’ daughters, Lucy Patterson Meyers.
Built in 1900, the house had three owners before 1965. Houston and Jessie Beaumont were the next to live in the home until the late 1970s when they donated the home to the University. In 1984, Evelyn and William Brown Patterson moved into the house as Mr. Patterson transitioned into his role as Dean of the College. With them, they brought their four children, who would go on to grow up in the five-bedroom home. The house soon became a fixture in the University community, drawing faculty, students and community members. Now, the Pattersons’ gift has the potential of helping the University strengthen those same community ties and help maintain the University’s longstanding reputation as a close-knit campus. University employees are eligible to bid on the house through Sept. 28. After several days of potential counteroffers, the winning bid will be announced on Oct. 1. If the buyer sells the house, it can only be purchased by another University employee.
Not only will the selling of houses like 195 North Carolina provide faculty, University staff members and their families a place to live, but it will also contribute to future housing options. According to the Master Plan, the profits from these sales will go into funding efforts for more on-campus housing projects. This includes the University’s plan, developed by its subsidiary Sewanee Village Ventures, to build 48 new apartments for employees that will be available for use in 2027. These apartments alone will increase total University rental residences by over 40%. In the last four years, Sewanee Village Ventures has also built 10 homes now owned by faculty and staff, proposed a townhouse development and has identified sites on the Domain that could become sites for 50 to 70 more.
This comes as many employees have struggled to find appropriate housing at an affordable price. Those challenges have accelerated during the past decade as housing prices have rapidly inflated, placing most houses out of a reachable price range for many employees. Vice-Chancellor Rob Pearigen spoke on these metrics in a recent email sent to the campus community this past week.
“As you may have heard me say, my biggest surprise — and one of the most significant challenges I’ve faced since returning to Sewanee in 2023 after 13 years away — has been the large number of faculty members who now live some distance from campus,” Pearigen wrote. “Today, the percentage of houses on the Domain owned by faculty and staff has declined to just 33%. If we include retired employees, that figure rises to 50%. In 2002, active and retired University employees owned 59% of the houses on the Domain.”
Speaking with the Sewanee Purple, Pearigen reiterated the need to increase opportunities for faculty and staff to live on campus. “The fabric of our college community depends upon a high percentage of faculty and staff living on or near campus. Deeper engagement in the community, stronger relationships among students, faculty and staff, and a greater sense of belonging naturally flow from living on or in close proximity to campus. Our motto — ecce quam bonum, behold how good and pleasant it is for kindred to dwell together in unity — speaks to this very value of living closer together,” Pearigen said.
He emphasized the ongoing efforts to support housing endeavors and future projects. “We are working hard and putting in place a number of initiatives to reverse the tide and create more opportunities for our faculty and staff to return to the Domain where they can find good and affordable housing.”
To learn more about the home’s history, the Purple had the opportunity to take a tour of the house with Lucy Meyers, who was 13 when she moved into the home and now works in the University Bookstore. As I approached the driveway, I immediately noticed how trees and bushes surround the house, making it so the home almost emerges from the woods as you drive down the street. When I commented on the variety of old Black Locusts, Virginia Pines and White Oaks in the yard, Lucy detailed the home’s proximity to nature.
“Sometimes, I would catalog 30 different species of birds just in one spring night, just hanging out on the front porch,” Lucy said. She continued, detailing the house’s close access to Abbo’s Alley, “My father would use Abbo’s Alley to go up to his office and back. There’s this little bridge down here, and often there would be cans of beer from revelers the night before. He would almost always arrive home with a bag full of trash, and he never said something like ‘those darn students.’ He always said, ‘That’s just the way it is.’ He just wanted to clean it up. Those are good memories. Just special.”
The home has striking Swiss Chalet features, including an ornamental trim along the roof’s overhang and a wrought iron fence lining the front porch. Lucy explained that Swiss colony craftsmen played a large role in the home’s original construction. Walking into the home, I noticed the thin strip floorboards and a large wooden staircase with a deep brown finish, a few more Swiss signatures.
I also saw how many doors are in the home, to which Lucy told about the house’s unofficial nickname as “the house or doors,” noting that every single door has its own original skeleton key. As we walked through the kitchen, Lucy showed me the collection of old brass keys, some from previous owners.
Walking back into the first floor from the stairs, I fully realized the sheer amount of bookcases that once housed her parents’ collection of over 20,000 books. The entryway was lined with large, thick, boarded bookshelves that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Her father’s library and study room was even more impressive, with bookshelves on every wall. According to Lucy, these custom shelves were the product of a two-year project involving the craftsmanship of a local woodworker. As I stood in the study with midday sunlight shining through the windows, I could only imagine the sight of all the shelves filled with books.
Walking to the back of the study, Lucy brought me to a small closet filled with even more shelves. “They built this in, and it is what my mom always called the stacks,” she said. “This is where all the Sewanee Reviews and all the periodicals that my dad published in went here. He published in four or five historical journals. They’re published four times a year. So, you can imagine how many periodicals there are. He had these wire, black bookshelves here and also, all along the back porch, he had those. He also had them in the kitchen.”
Literature was clearly an integral aspect of the Pattersons’ lives and their home’s design. Lucy’s father was a Rhodes Scholar and an avid writer who, before stepping down from deanship to return to full-time teaching, shaped the humanities program at the University. Throughout his tenure as a professor, he wrote numerous articles and book reviews for prestigious journals, as well as contributions to chapters and essays for multiple books. For all of his achievements as dean, professor, and writer, he was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Letters, from Sewanee in 2012.
Among years of housing the Pattersons’ book collections and various scholarly works, the home evolved to become a meeting point for the Sewanee community. Gazing out the living room’s windows that look onto the front yard, Lucy recalled the elaborate community gatherings, dinners and parties hosted in the house throughout the years.
“When he was Dean of the College, my Dad and Mom used to host a new faculty dinner every year. My sister and I, for those four years that we were here before we went to college, were always pressed into service. And we had a whole system, though, because we could see them. Dad would walk the whole group down, and they would walk down the hill. So, we could see them, and it was like, they’re coming!” Lucy said as she pointed out the window toward the hill.
“My dad also had 4th of July parties that my mom had started as this tradition of a block party,” Lucy continued. “When my mother passed away, my dad started engineering it and making us be his henchmen. He would come up with the email list, and then that would be the start of it. We had to contact all these people, and it was always a big 4th of July party that turned into this thing of its own, that was ‘after the parade, come on down to the Pattersons!’” Lucy said.
Looking to the future, these new housing options on campus will strive to continue what makes Sewanee special: the act of living together in unity as a cohesive, campus community. Lucy agreed with this idea as she reflected on the future of 195 North Carolina Avenue; as it was for her family, it could be a perfect home for a Sewanee academic, whether staff or faculty.
Peargin spoke similarly of the home’s value to the community. “I’m deeply grateful that Brown and Evie Patterson made the decision to donate their home to the University. And though it was not a condition of their donation, I’m very pleased that we’ve held this iconic home in reserve for purchase and occupancy by a member of our faculty or staff. We could probably get more money for the home on the open market, but its value as a place of continued residency and hospitality by a member of the University family is beyond comparison.”