Glen Lennox Stories: The Bell House

Jerry Bell has been in Chapel Hill since he graduated from Yale and joined the UNC faculty. His wife, Tina, grew up in the town, and after the Bells fell in love and married they lived in a two-bedroom apartment at 93 Hamilton Road in Glen Lennox. More than 50 years later, they are still cheerleaders for the iconic neighborhood that is currently in redevelopment.

“I moved here when I was nine years old when my dad came to be the dean of the dental school,” Tina told Chapelboro.com of her father “Willie” Demerit. “Like lots of other young families coming into Chapel Hill for years and years, we lived in Glen Lennox. And then with Jerry, our generation, we lived in Glen Lennox and it was really fun. We used to play kick the can every night after dinner.”

“We have three generations of Glen Lennox,” Jerry said. “Tina and her family, when she was 10 years old. Then we lived there for about four or five years while I was an assistant professor. And then one of our daughters, Kathryn, lived there. So, we’ve actually had three full generations plus hundreds of friends.”

While many residents moved on to prominent positions at UNC and other institutions of higher education, the common bond that they all hold remains strong.

“Dave Brown, who went on to be provost at Wake Forest the chancellor at UNC-Asheville,” Tina said, “and we’re still friends from the time we were baby carriage friends. My brother and his wife moved in a year or two after we did as a couple, they had just gotten married and Jerry and Bill, my brother, used to play badminton every single afternoon in the backyard, by the sandbox with all the little children running around crying and laughing and going down the slide.”

Jerry added, “The joy, of course, was a variety of faculty members lived in Glen Lennox. So young faculty, some of the senior administrators of the university, the head architect, and his wife named Arthur Tuttle and Edie Tuttle.

“It was designed with a genius plan for social interaction and particularly young families. All of the back doors opened into these grassy areas. During the spring, summer and falls, everybody had their doors open and were playing outside, a lot of young kids, and it was just like an idyllic place to move into and to get to know everybody. So that was delightful.”

Jerry rode to campus with Dave Brown. “We were young assistant professors, poor as church mice, and he had this old Hudson. He lived way down on Hamilton and I could hear him start his car in the morning, three or four blocks away. It would come roaring up with fumes and smoke and off we’d go to the campus.”

“The men went to work and we had lots of young mothers there too,” Tina recalled. “You could just stop by somewhere and say ‘hi’ to a friend. And if they’re ready, they can come out and go walking with you. But if they’re not, you weren’t imposing. So it was kind of drop in and play. And what went through my mind, it was like a dog park for human beings because they’re all sandboxes and the yards were full of kids running around and going in and out other people’s apartments and a pretty free flowing and walking, helping themselves to food and other people.”

The Bells paid $85 a month rent in 1963, including electricity. “We lived there for five or six years and saved up lots,” Tina said. “and for us that was lots of money at that time, and built the house we live in now. And I always think that Glen Lennox was a big part of our being able to do that since we had such a pleasant life, and yet we saved as much money as possible.”

Although Franklin Street was a short ride away, the Glen Lennox Shopping Center was the hub for most of the residents. “The Dairy Bar, of course, was the place we’d go for a big treat Saturday, Sunday mornings,” Jerry said, “take our kids to stroll down to Glen Lennox and have breakfast. And everybody was there, having ice cream and meals. And we had a grocery store, so we had our village.”

“And we had George Harris, our pharmacist,” Tina chimed in, “at the Glen Lennox Pharmacy. They delivered all the time. I keep saying everybody, of course it’s not everybody, but it felt like you were a part of everybody and they would deliver the meds. It was just a very homey and close feeling.”

Besides making so many close friends, they also had built in baby-sitters, students from many of the classes that got to know the professors and ended up watching their kids to give the parents a night off.

Jerry and Tina are delighted that developer Clay Grubb has a love of Chapel Hill and will incorporate as much of the old feel as possible when Grubb Properties begins renovating and rebuilding the duplexes and triplexes along Hamilton Road. They know that Grubb consulted former and current residents to make sure he knew what was most important to them.

“If Clay can copy the essential elements that produced the atmosphere and the happiness of Glen Lennox, it would make a real contribution to North Carolina and all of the wonderful people who live there,” said Jerry, who still runs the consulting firm Bell Leadership. “One of the most important ingredients for someone to be successful in business, I’ve found, is that they have the ability to listen. And it sounds like he was eager to listen and created a set of products designed to fit the customer’s needs so well.”

Tina noticed that right away when the club house was being finished in phase one. “Beginning when things started to change, they kept the original Glen Lennox logo up, and that means a lot,” she said. “And several other places, too. I thought that showed there was someone who cared about the past.”

And the Bells have an offer for Clay Grubb.

“Tell him that we’ll give a little bit of money to name 93 Hamilton Road after us . . . as the Bell House,” Tina said, giggling like her happy childhood days in Glen Lennox.

“Glen Lennox Stories” is a series on Chapelboro sponsored by Grubb Properties