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

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

R.I.P. Laverne (1994-2009)

I adopted Laverne on May 14, 1994. She was about four months old. Although I adored her, I shouldn't have gotten her while I was living at the house, since none of our housemates were into the idea (plus Sylvia's whole "no pets" rule!).

One time, she got onto the roof. Terrifying experience! I think a couple of us came back from the video store, and that slum-lord guy across the street was outside saying there's a dog on the roof. I had just moved into the pink room upstairs with the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and didn't know about the loose screen window that could be flipped open. Laverne had been waiting for me in the room.

Anywho, she went out the window, where the roof was over the porch, but then made her way to the very slanted part of the attic area. She was trying to grip the roof, but you could hear her nails scraping the roof tile as she slipped. So of course, I ran up the stairs, popped out on the roof and climbed over to her. Pretty tricky carrying a dog off a roof!

We euthanized Laverne in May because she was having kidney failure. Broke my heart. It was almost 15 years to the day of her adoption.

- Mel Keister (Lanham), 9/18/09