Much of the land was sold to the University in 1974 by Baity and his wife, Dr. Elizabeth Chesley Baity.
H.G. Baity and His Property
H.G. Baity was a 1917 graduate of UNC, a renowned scholar and a former associate editor of The Daily Tar Heel.
He was the recipient of the first Ph.D. in sanitary engineering in the United States. In 1928, while working on a doctorate at Harvard Engineering School, Baity won the Clemons Herschel Prize for the most outstanding work done in America in the field of sanitation. He was invited to join the Harvard faculty, but chose to return to Chapel Hill instead. ?He was a man who loved the University,? said Daniel Okun, who replaced Baity as the head of UNC?s Department of Sanitary Engineering. ?He was a big power in the University for a long time.? Baity served on the faculty at UNC until 1955. He was later appointed chief engineer and director of sanitary engineering in the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Helen Martikainen, who served as chief of health education in the WHO with Baity, remembers the parties the Baitys would have at their home abroad and in Chapel Hill.
?It wasn?t just older people who attended, it was young students, too ? it was like a small community party,? she said. ?They were very generous with their hospitality.?
Martikainen said the home provided a pleasant setting for the parties and gatherings. ?When you drove on the road out to the house, you enjoyed the beauty of birds and trees and flowers,? she said. ?In a few minutes you were in a country setting. It was beautiful.? The land Baity owned and the house he built also had an ideal location on the southeastern border of campus. The University saw advantages in the land and thought it might solve expansion needs in its long-term future. Baity long ago had dreams for how his land might be used. ?I want it to be as nearly as possible an ideal, high-class residential community, enjoying solitude, and with a subdivision plan that will take the best advantage of the interesting topography,? Baity wrote in a Feb. 10, 1960, letter. ?Its location within walking distance of the University should give it additional attractiveness.? He wanted to donate the land to his beloved university, but later was financially unable to do so.
In July 1974, after years of negotiating its price and land use, the Baitys sold 44.9 acres to the University for $500,000. They kept their house and nine acres that surround it. But Baity died just a year later, survived by his wife and two sons, William and Philip.
Several years after acquiring the land, the University announced its intentions to build a Student Athletic Center on property it had acquired from the Baitys.
Mrs. Baity wasn?t pleased with this proposal. ?I am deeply concerned over the proposed use of the land,? Mrs. Baity said in a March 29, 1978 letter. ?Our first question upon opening negotiations concerned its possible use for the coliseum. Had we not been assured that this was not in the picture, we might not have been reluctant to turn down offers for twice as much per acre.? But a few weeks later, the University submitted a rezoning proposal to the town that would allow them to develop the South Campus area.
