Pink House Forever

The Pink House was like an underground United Nations. Chapel Hill's aspiring artists, musicians, poets, DJ's, activists, actors, writers, nudists, flutists, knuckleheads, and couch-surfers, all living together in (relative) harmony, united by their common bohemianism. Life inside the Pink House often consisted of weird shit happening at all hours, every day, it rarely stopped. And there's something about that place that won't allow the vibe to ever fully dissipate. / PinkHouseForever.org

Pink House. 130 North Street. Back In The Day.

Fellow residents from the 1991-94 years were Clint Curtis, Shyam Patel, Raj Krishnasami, Lydia Craft, Jess Deltac, Kyle York Spencer, Caroline Rivers Hall, Mel Lanham, Michelle Sinnott, Jay Murray, N'Gai Wright, Scott Bullock (who crashed on the couch for a year before finally moving in), Bryan Ellerson, Karen Hurka, Sally Stryker, Ryan Mathias, Charlie Speight, Chris Palmatier, Trent McDevitt, and Steve William.

Besides holdovers and returnees Jay, Scott, Mel (& Laverne!), Chris, and N'Gai, residents during 1995-97 included Ian Williams, Greg Humphreys, Allen Sellars (who, like Jay, lived at both the Pink House and 401 Pritchard), Zak Bisacky, James Dasher, Linden Elstran, Jiffer Bourguignon, Grant Tennille (who first made the scene as a fixture in N'Gai's room circa summer '93), Zia Zareem, Ben Folds, Tom Holden, and Chris "Chip" Chapman.

- Erik Ose

Sunday, December 1, 1991

Never made it to C-line's for Thanksgiving break

As you know, I spent Thanksgiving in Chapel Hill. Most of the time I was hanging out with three of my friends - Clint, Dana, and one of Dana's good friends, N'Gai. Got much studying done, and listened to a lot of John Coltrane. Have you ever heard his version of "My Favorite Things"? To say it is very beautiful would be an understatement.

...

I'm really enjoying living off campus with my friends. Now that we're all settled into our house, our utility costs have stabilized at about $40 per person, per month. We all pay for things like lightbulbs, paper towels, and toilet paper communally. We also went in on a newspaper subscription and cable TV.

- letter to Dad

(Note from 2009 - to say I "got much studying done" that Thanksgiving break was the biggest overstatement ever. We had been invited down to C-line's place in Charlotte for the meal, but were having far too good of a time by ourselves at the Pink House to motivate.

Eventually, everyone got tired of paying for communal household supplies and I started vic'ing whatever paper products we needed from UNC. It was some scratchy-ass toilet paper, but the price was right. I seem to remember a hacker hooking us up with free cable at some point, but maybe that's just wishful thinking, because I also remember lots of trips to the Time Warner cable office up at Timberlyne to pay our late bills.)