Programmatic Collage
Incorporating the hotel’s lobby, restaurant and ballroom all on the ground floor became impossible because of limited space. Schroeder and the team examined a number of design scenarios and decided to move the lobby to the second floor, which had been open office space. The front entrance leads to the marble elevator lobby where guests rise to the second floor to check in. Around the corner from the elevators, a historic staircase offers guests another intriguing access route. “21c commissioned a video art installation of Western sunsets along the staircase,” Schroeder recalls. “The color changes on the screens are very dynamic and the stairwell is lined with mirrors to magnify the effect.”
The Hill Building is on the National Register of Historic Places. The adaptive reuse project received tax credits from the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, Raleigh, and federal historic preservation tax incentives from the National Park Service, Washington, D.C. One tax-credit stipulation was that the team had to maintain the original double-height volume of the ground floor’s former 4,450-square-foot department store, which also had a mezzanine. The team designed this space, just south of the main entry, into a restaurant. The new restaurant’s bar and dining countertops are quartzitic sandstone quarried near Brentwood, Mo., chosen because the stone’s color complements the hues in the terrazzo floor.
Single-use restrooms now line the mezzanine. “We made the route to the restrooms circuitous so people are led on a journey through artwork. You can take the video-art-installation stairwell that eventually leads to the lobby or the elevators, which make you pass through the mezzanine’s art gallery,” Schroeder explains.
The restrooms themselves are surprising. When the door to each restroom is open, both the door and accompanying wall area are transparent. Once a user steps inside and locks the door, the glass becomes translucent for privacy, thanks to switchable glass controlled by electrical circuit.
On the north side of the first floor, the hotel’s ballroom took over the original banking hall, a grand 2,670-square-foot space paneled in lustrous floor-to-ceiling pecan wood.
The historic bank vault with its safety deposit boxes still exists on the lower level. In keeping with 21c’s theme of creative exhibitions, the gleaming metal space now encases art and lounge seating that entices people to linger.
Exterior Aesthetics
To preserve the original character of the building, the historic tax credits mandated that the team retain the double-hung steel sash windows. “The windows were beautiful and we wanted to keep their aesthetic, but they weren’t environmentally sensitive.” The team performed energy modeling and centered on a variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system as the most energy-efficient way to condition the spaces. Although the Durham climate is temperate, each glass lite was recaulked to give the window the best possible seal from the elements. For safety reasons, the windows are no longer operable.
Aluminum panels between the steel sash windows on the building’s exterior give the limestone façade a banded look, and decorative aluminum grillwork stands above the entrances. To provide weather protection but maintain views to the Art Deco grillwork, the architects placed an unobtrusive canopy at the main entrance.
Hotel and restaurant uses require a loading dock, but the building had no accessible back side because of adjacent development. “We removed the sill on a small section of storefront along Main Street and transformed it into a door,” Schroeder describes. “This created a discreet 6-foot-wide loading area that’s barely visible on the façade.”