CityView Magazine

10 March 2022 FA SCINAT ING FAYETT EV ILLE Family history on Hillcrest Blending memories with modern appeal BY COURTNEY PHILLIPS | PHOTOGRAPHY BY JENIFER FENNELL O ne Sunday morning aer church, Eileen and Tom Hatch were making the slow crawl up Westmont Drive in the heart of Haymount. As usual, Tom peeked down Hillcrest Avenue as they drove past, his eyes settling on the white crasman cottage he knew so well. is day, it looked different. Tom could see notices taped to the windows and doors. A swi detour revealed that the home built by his great grandfather, S.T. Hatch, in 1937 for his grandfather, J.L. Hatch, and grandmother, was in foreclosure. Only several years prior, Tom and Eileen had sold the home to a neighbor aer Tom's dad died. "When Tom's dad passed, the boys were in school, and it was a two-bedroom, one-bath house. We thought about renovating for about five minutes, but it was too fresh. We were grieving," Eileen said. On that Sunday morning, the Hatches were figuratively in a very different place. Leighton and Sam, their two sons, were grown and gone. Tom was settled into his principalship at Terry Sanford. Eileen was director of Haymount United Methodist Church preschool, both within a stone's throw of Hillcrest. "We just monitored the situation in the background," Tom said. Upon learning that the home would be auctioned, he looked at Eileen and asked, "Should we make an offer?" Above for the exterior, Eileen Hatch settled on a surprisingly cheerful combination of gray hues that accent the peaks of the gabled roof and highlight the brick chimney as a focal point of the cottage. Right, Tom and Eileen Hatch moved in April 2020.

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