Built in 2009 

Joy Goryn enjoys the challenge of working with a “difficult lot.” She bought the narrow, steeply sloping ¾-acre lot with a creek at 801 Rosemont Avenue from the owners of the adjacent V. Otis Parker House, a grand 1920s English Manor House. A covenant in her deed stipulated that she would build a house that would be “subordinate to and consistent with” the stone Parker House. So she did exactly that.

In 2009 she finished construction of her new home, which she describes as an English cottage that “blows out into a contemporary in the back.” The main floor of her stone and wood sided house contains 2200 square feet of large rooms that flow together, full of sunshine from the large windows overlooking the creek. Floors of reclaimed Cape Fear River pine and Florida limestone and cathedral ceilings with exposed cedar beams create an interior space of contemporary character with reminders of the English cottage style. The steeply sloping lot allowed for the construction of a lower daylight level of the same size, which she has left unfinished. 

Joy worked with residential designer Len Vogel, from Durham, on the general design, but she selected her own materials and designed many of the details herself. The Goryn House is the University Park Home of the Month for August because it embodies the principles of good residential infill: respect for the environment, both natural and architectural. The house defers and refers to the English manor next door, and allows the natural beauty of the creek and its wooded banks to remain. Article by Ruth Little