When in Roam
By: Howard Fertig
Tags: Life Lessons, Travel, Life, Personal Development, Retirement

Durham, Chapel Hill, and Tobacco Road (aka Duke & UNC)

Durham, the funky smaller wingman of the Raleigh/Durham duo is located northwest and just outside of the 540 beltway that rings the city of Raleigh. It’s where you’ll find Duke University, which is 20 minutes east of Chapel Hill, and the University of North Carolina (UNC) via route 501, aka Tobacco Road (which refers to multiple things, including a great rocker by Johnny and Edgar Winter, but always references the area’s history as a major tobacco producer). They’re two great schools that are college hoops royalty. Here are some snapshots of the towns, schools, 55+ communities we checked out, as well as other musings about life on the road…

Durham

We loved the vibe walking the American Tobacco Historic District!

Hit Bull Win Steak, Hit Grass Win Salad

We started at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park (“d-bap”) that opened in 1995 and was built by HOK Sport, the same firm responsible for Camden Yards. It has that same feel of brick and iron, and retains the snorting bull sign that, if hit, wins the batter a steak. You can’t help but smile when you see it, if: 1- you loved the movie Bull Durham and/or your dad was a Brooklyn Dodger fan, where at their home, Ebbets Field, they ran a similar promotion. It also pays homage to another classic ballpark — Fenway in Boston — with 32-foot Blue Monster 305 feet from home plate in left-field. And you’re able to walk up from the sidewalk and overlook the field and the stadium. Great!

Then we checked out the American Tobacco Campus (ATC) which was shut down in 1987 after American Tobacco left Durham. Prior, Durham had been a hub of the tobacco industry dating back to the 1870s. A design firm was hired to renovate the campus, which reopened in 2004, and they did a wonderful job. Walking the ATC I felt like I was in a Charles Demuth painting (he’s in my top ten) with the old Lucky Strike water tower and smokestack hovering over the manufacturing warehouses that have been turned into a combination of offices, restaurants, WUNC Public Radio, a documentary film studio, and Mellow Mushroom pizzeria.

Staying in Raleigh/Durham, the epicenter of tobacco industrialization from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, another thing that has struck us is that we don’t see anyone smoking. Being in a place that was built on and is known for one industry, one thing, that is now non-existent, reminds me of what I’ve heard happened in Germany after WWII. In a country that was the birthplace of Nazism, any direct form or expression of it now is prohibited. Sometimes it takes extreme negative behavior to affect societal change. Maybe we’ll see that again in our lifetime? Maybe we’re in the midst of it?

Then we drove through Duke University. We drove through it because we couldn’t find any public parking options on campus. Every lot required an access card, including Cameron Indoor Stadium where the Blue Devils shoot hoops under the direction of Coach K. We saw it from afar, and its architecture maps to the rest of the campus which has that Ivy League and Georgetown gothic feel. What we didn’t expect was how much space the school consumed. All the buildings nestled into a sprawling woodland campus.

From there we drove to the Levin JCC — Durham, which from the outside seems like a best-in-class facility. It’s a new building with indoor/outdoor pools. We couldn’t tour due to COVID but Dave, the 52-year young Operations Manager, whose recently became a pescatarian (I used to think that was a sect of Christianity) and was fittingly wearing a Durham Bulls t-shirt (I want one), was walking the grounds due to high winds and gave us a little tour and some background. Seems like a Goliath compared to the David-like Raleigh-Durham JCC Leslie showed us in Cary, which was also great in a Hamish/underdog vibe way. Perhaps it’s the best of both worlds, if you patronize the two of them.

From there we explored two communities in the area:

- Carolina Arbors: is a Del Webb community. 1,300 homes, newer than (the last unit sold last year), but similar to, the Carolina Preserve development I referenced from my Cary NC post. Peeps seemed to be in our age group, and the clubhouse and sense of community were impressive. In addition to 3 pages of over 50 clubs, they have indoor/outdoor pools, and — think of a ‘USTA-Billie-Jean-King-National-PICKLE BALL-Center’!!!

- Creekside at Bethpage: is still being built, and will have 315 units when finished. The homes in all of these developments look similar. Unattached mid-sized homes that are modern in style and are close together. 1,300–2,500 sq. ft. in size, no McMansions. It had a clubhouse, a list of 20 or so clubs, a pool, and four-to-six tennis/pickleball courts. As they’re under construction, Garry, the sales rep, born/raised in Wisconsin, and currently in North Carolina by way of Arizona, (can you say swing states?) gave us a COVID-friendly overview and tour of the development and model homes. It was a treat to actually engage with someone at one of these communities, albeit in masks from a distance.

Comparing the two developments was like comparing a small-to-mid-sized college vs. a 40,000-student university.

Then we took a break from fact-finding to drive thru the University of North Carolina (UNC). It, too, had that Ivy League feel. You get to drive down tree-lined streets that act as canopies for the road beneath as you look at old large stone buildings and get flashbacks to Harry Potter movies. As you ride out from the center of campus, the buildings are newer. Utilitarian-looking halls from the 70s and a huge athletic center that is fueled by Tar Heels basketball, the late great coach Dean Smith, and arguably the greatest basketball player of all time # 23 MJ.

We wanted to find a place to park by the student center, and try to walk to the Dean Smith Center, aka Dean Dome, but all the parking spots were reserved for students getting COVID tests. Again, there was no public parking. Also, as at Duke University, we didn’t see many people on campus or in the various stores, restaurants, and watering holes nearby. Consistent with all other stops on our tour to date, it’s a relative ghost town. You feel like you’re on an active movie lot during off-hours, and relatively speaking, that’s a good thing.

After leaving campus we checked out nearby communities looking for that campus vibe/active adult blend that has eluded us to date:

- Villas at Culp Arbor: a small development, 150 units tops. Small clubhouse, small pool. The community has been around since 2013. Homes are nice, but all have the same brick and it feels too Stepford Wive-sy for us. The website talks up how great the location is, but compared to NY metro, so far everything feels like it’s 20 minutes tops away from everything else.

- Chapelwood: Now this is close to downtown Chapel Hill, a 5-minute drive. A little larger community than Culp Arbor but no amenities and again every home looks the same. If the house number were to fall off my mailbox, I’d be knocking on a bunch of different doors to get home.

- Briar Chapel: a much larger enterprise. After entering the community, we were still one mile from the sales office. When complete, there will be 1,000 units in all, and their 55+ community Encore makes up about 15%-20% of the development. Homes are of varied colors and styles but all fit within a general motif which I’ll call contemporary country-suburban. We actually got a walkthrough (Covid friendly of course) from a salesperson — Erin, who was great. Informative, passionate, and a resident. She spent 45 minutes with us even after we shared that we probably wouldn’t be purchasing until early 2022. We toured two models. The layouts were great — big open spaced kitchen/dining room/great rooms that led to a patio out back, replete with outdoor monitor hung over a fireplace. They had master suites off to one side and two bedrooms with a shared bath at the front of the home with an office on the other side of the hall. Now we’re talkin!

Today, home shopping felt like a goldilocks scenario, with this last development feeling “just right” in concept. A lot of amenities to choose from and new construction. Now, we get to travel and check out the rest of the USA and see where we land in six months, but this builder — David Weekley — and location, are on the map.

That being said, what we’ve seen so far is what Carol refers to as “Florida Light.” And by Florida, our frame of reference is the east coast north of Miami; Del Ray, Boca, Boynton. What we’ve seen in North Carolina are self-contained communities with amenities, nestled between private homes. Whereas on Atlantic Avenue, west of 95 and Del Ray beach, it’s rows upon rows of developments. We’re still looking for that Princeton, NJ, vibe, in a moderate climate where you’ve got a neighborhood just down the road (Nassau St. to be exact) from a self-contained University.

Then it was back to our home away from…what? We don’t have a home. Home away from Bungalow? Home away from Subaru Outback?

Anyway, back at the Airbnb, we finished watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix*. As soon as it ended, I took the advice of the software developers in the movie. These are the folks that built the apps most of us use all the time. I deleted all notifications on all the apps on my phone. From now on, I’ll check periodically in a responsible fashion, and if people need to reach me in real-time, dare I say — call me? By the next morning, I felt a difference, like my time/thoughts were more my own. I was a little less distracted. If this resonates, you may wanna check out the flick and give it a whirl 😉

*Is it me or do others have probs remembering what’s on Netflix vs. Hulu vs. Prime vs. Disney, etc.? I didn’t have this issue with cable or network TV. Is it because we can watch anything at any time? Or that there aren’t commercials for other programs during the show you’re watching? Thoughts?