The Spanish Revival style mansion is Durham’s most opulent survivor of the period revival residences built for the city’s early 20^th century elite. It was built for financier and philanthropist John Sprunt Hill and his wife Annie Louise Watts Hill, the only daughter of tobacconist and philanthropist George Watts. Watts purchased the prominent lot on Morehead Hill for his daughter and son-in-law in 1909 as site of their new home. It was located not far from Watts’s own mansion designed by Taylor. According to Howard E. Covington’s book Favored by Fortune: George W. Watts and the Hills of Durham, in 1908 Hill asked Taylor to prepare designs for his new residence, but Taylor’s plans “did not excite Hill or his wife, so they postponed a decision” until after a summer visit to New England and New York “where they hoped to be inspired by designs.” Other delays ensued. After Taylor’s death in 1909, his partner Kendall continued under the firm name for several years and took on the project for the Hills’ residence. The extant plans for the house are marked “revised April 14, 1911,” and various sheets are initialed FCL, GWP (March 25, 1911), and EWO (Bishir, telephone conversation with Joanne Goodwyn, Hill House, Nov. 11, 2014). In recognition of his wife’s participation in civic functions, John Sprunt Hill’s will established a trust, the Annie Watts Hill Fund, so that Hill House would serve as a continuing memorial to her. It has been restored and serves as a meeting place for women’s groups and home to the Junior League of Durham and Orange counties.

For George Watts’s second hospital given to Durham, Taylor planned the initial seven buildings of the campus in a “modified Spanish mission type” laid out according to current standards of medical treatment. When the contract for the project was announced in 1908, the Charlotte Observer ofApril 9 lauded Taylor as the “greatest hospital architect in the world.” Open porches and balconies, many windows, and a cheerful décor were intended to enhance residents’ health. The Greensboro Daily News of December 3, 1909, reported at the dedication of the hospital that its architect, Taylor, had died before it was completed, and cited Wilson of Richmond (who had built Richmond’s Jefferson Hotel) as the builder. The following year, the Manufacturers’ Record (March 10, 1910), noted Kendall, Taylor, and Company as architects of an additional pavilion at the Watts Hospital. Other structures including the Valinda Beale Watts Pavilion (1926) were planned by architect Arthur C. Nash and followed similar concepts. In the 1980s the facility was renovated to an innovative state school.