UPHA December 2011 Home of the Month!
Yuletide Light Display of Christmas Past ~ The Hube House ~ 19 Furches Street
For many Christmases until the last one, Bill Hube bedecked the boughs of the 150-year-old red oak in his front yard with strings of lights shooting up toward the house and suspended a bicycle tire with light-festooned spokes from an over-hanging branch as a Christmas accent.
Throughout the tree’s long life, it sheltered many squirrels, including a family of flying squirrels in the 1980s. It survived Hurricane Fran in 1996, as family and neighbors checked the tree with flashlights throughout the night to see if it was still standing. Bill’s beautiful photograph shows the tree on the evening last November before it was cut down because of interior rot.
Bill and Shera still decorate for Christmas and have started over with a young red oak in its place, although it will be years before they have a similar scaffold for their fanciful lights. They have owned the lovely stone home on Furches Street, one block off Hillsborough Street, since 1978, when Shera worked in admissions at Meredith, her alma mater. Before that, Dr. Carlyle Campbell, president of Meredith College, lived here during his thirty-year tenure at the school. And way before that, Professor C. C. Taylor in the College of Agriculture and Engineering at NC State University had the house built in 1925 out of Falls Gneiss granite from the same quarry that produced the stone for Broughton High School.
The Hubes completed a major remodeling in 2004, designed by B. A. Farrell, which improved the flow of the interior, created a master bedroom suite upstairs, and added an elevator lift. A high-ceilinged screen porch and carport were also added in the back. Bill, formerly a landscape architect, now works as a graphic designer at Triangle Microworks. Shera works in CFNC and NC 529 services for College Foundation, Inc. Their daughter Taylor Hube is in marketing at Skanska, a construction company, and daughter Ashlin Hube Spinney is in HR at Raleigh Medical Group. Both of the photos were shot by Bill.
The ancient oak that stood until recently at 19 Furches Street, and the Hube House that benefitted so greatly from its presence, are honored this December as the spirit of Christmas Past in University Park. When you drive by 19 Furches Street during the Christmas season, enjoy Christmas present at the beautiful old home and take a minute to visualize Christmas past.
And so…..