Fire damages UNC's Gerrard Hall

CHAPEL HILL -- An early-morning fire today damaged Gerrard Hall, a 19th-century building at UNC-Chapel Hill where U.S. presidents, famous poets and Hollywood stars have taken the stage.

Chapel Hill firefighters rushed to the building on Cameron Avenue at 3:04 a.m. Saturday after an automatic fire alarm call.

Automatic sprinklers had partially extinguished the blaze, Tommy Gregory, assistant fire marshal, said in a news release, and fire crews were able to fully snuff out the flames.

UNC police were investigating the cause of the fire today. The first floor of the building sustained water and smoke damage. The fire marshal estimated overall damages at $50,000.

Gerrard Hall, a backdrop for many group photographs in the history books of UNC-Chapel Hill, took 15 years to construct. Work began in 1822 on what, for many years, was called "New Chapel." But money problems delayed completion of the building until 1837 -- just in time for graduation ceremonies in what the Raleigh Register described as a "commodious building" with large galleries and "taste and becoming style."

For most of its first century, Gerrard Hall was used as a chapel with stiff-backed pews. Over the years, Presidents James K. Polk, James Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson spoke at Gerrard, as did poets Langston Hughes and George Moses Horton.

A scene in "Patch Adams," the 1998 movie starring Robin Williams, was filmed in Gerrard.

The hall was named for Maj. Charles Gerrard of Edgecombe County, who left 14,000 acres to the university at his death in 1797.

It was through the sale of some of that land in Tennessee that UNC-Chapel Hill collected enough money to finish construction of the building.