With development spearheaded by a local team of passionate conservationists, architects, and developers, this is an estate with a storied past getting a second chance to shine.
A renewed purpose for an historic property.
The residences of the new Pinecrest neighborhood will be situated on the estate of the historic Cobb-Biddle House, also called Pinecrest. The 10-acre property, which is located within Durham’s Forest Hills Historic District, still includes the original 1927 Tudor Revival-style mansion and several structures and landscape elements that contributed to the home’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
Forest Hills: A new community concept in the early 1900s
The Forest Hills neighborhood was the vision of former Durham mayor W. J. Griswold and prominent American landscape architect Earle Sumner Draper, who laid out the neighborhood as a “garden suburb” with large estate lots in a park-like setting.
Cobb asked his friend, architect George Watts Carr, to design several “seed” homes for Forest Hills in the Colonial and Tudor Revival styles, popular in the 1920s. Carr was also charged with designing a stylish custom-built home atop a prominent Forest Hills knoll for Cobb and his wife, Virginia. The sprawling Tudor Revival brick and stucco home was finished in the 1920s.
In 1935, the estate was purchased by Mary Duke Biddle, who named her new home “Pinecrest.”
A future vision for an historic property.
The property remained in the family, used only for family events and gatherings until 2018 when the family sold the property to a group of local Durham investors. Drawing upon the expertise of architect Lew Oliver and urban designer Tony Sease of civitech.com, who both share a commitment to considered urban development and walkability, the idea for the new Pinecrest community was born.
The property upon which Pinecrest sits has been rezoned to allow increased residential density, and the project will conscientiously preserve and restore the historic George Watts Carr-designed Tudor mansion and the Karl Bock-designed caretaker’s cottage. Learn more about the new Pinecrest neighborhood.
