LIVING THE HILLSBOROUGH LIFE
Robbin Taylor-Hall’s deep community roots

by Janice Dusseau Jones

Robbin Taylor-Hall knows Hillsborough — both its history and its future growth. She’s a successful Realtor in town, but more than that she’s an avid, self-described town supporter.

“There’s just a lot going on to be such a small (downtown),” she says.

While the historic district is only one square mile, Taylor-Hall says it’s filled with local flavor.

“It’s very eclectic with the different people who live here,” she notes. “There are a lot of writers, artists, independent shop owners and restaurant people. It’s just neat.”

Taylor-Hall knows the area intimately and references the streets — Margaret Lane, Churton Street, East Union — as if they’re familiar faces. She loves that her growing town has been able to keep its historical charm

“This was a very sleepy town five generations ago. It was one traffic light at King Street,” she says.

A sense of community
Taylor-Hall’s family roots run deep in Hillsborough. Her family has been here for at least five generations, but because her father works as a commercial contractor, she and her sister were raised in several towns.

“We moved all up and down the Eastern seaboard growing up, but the constant place in our life was Hillsborough because we always came back here for Christmas or vacations to visit family,” she says. “This is the one place we remember our whole life.”

Taylor-Hall didn’t always plan to settle in Hillsborough, but says it simply worked out that way. She had been traveling throughout Europe and was spending a lot of time in Paris when she returned home.

“I thought I would be traveling,” she admits. “I never thought I’d settle down in a small town like I have.”

She met her husband locally while out with a group of friends. She says it was as if she traveled the world only to find what she wanted right at home.

“He was a Duke guy and I was a Carolina girl, so we got married at Duke Chapel and had our reception at the Carolina Club,” she says.

Taylor-Hall stepped into real estate when her father spotted a house on Schley Road and made a deal, then told her about it.

“I said, ‘If I don’t hate it, I’ll buy it,’ ” she remembers.

She signed the paperwork and went to see the house, and it instantly became home. Her experience led her to take a real estate class so that the next time she bought a house, she’d be more knowledgeable. In 1997, she launched Taylor-Hall Properties, a full-service real estate brokerage firm in Hillsborough.

The location of her first office on Margaret Lane downtown set the stage for a long-running relationship with her hometown. The Hillsborough Area Chamber of Commerce was on the other side of the wall from her office, and she soon found herself hooked on the local scene.

“I went to a lot of the town meetings and got to know the town officials,” she says. “That’s when I really got involved in the community.”

Taylor-Hall does not consider herself a quiet citizen, so she was naturally drawn to be closer to the action.

“I ended up buying a house that was moved here from Burnsville,” she says. “It’s an 1898 house that was moved here in 14-foot sections.”

The house is only a half-mile from Churton Street, so she can easily walk downtown to restaurants and events such as Last Fridays, Hog Day, and the Candlelight Tour. It’s part of what she loves about Hillsborough: its walkability, its progressiveness and its growth.

“We’re getting a lot of cool new things,” Taylor-Hall says.

“Riverwalk is coming through. We’ve got Gold Park that’s opening up — that’s right at my doorstep.”

Steeped in history
As downtown Hillsborough grows, so does Taylor-Hall’s footprint. In 2004, another building downtown caught her eye: a 1932 Esso station that she’s currently renovating.

“I was just going to make a nice little brick building to match the other brick buildings in town,” she says of the structure.

But she soon learned that she could earn tax credits on the property by restoring it to State Historic Preservation Office standards, which meant that the former Esso station had to look like an old Esso station. She agreed, and with her father’s help her funky new office on South Churton Street soon will resemble a gas station.

“It’s going to be neat,” she says of the office, which will have bi-folding doors instead of garage doors once it’s complete.

“In the future, if I want to put a little café or something like that in there, then I can do that,” she adds.
Taylor-Hall’s café undoubtedly would be a welcome addition to Hillsborough’s list of must-try places. She suggests lunch at various spots such as Saratoga Grill — located midway between Margaret Lane and King Street above Court Square Shops — for those who like seafood.

Clearly, her hometown is not a hard sell.

“It’s a great place to live — and visit,” she says.

Janice Dusseau Jones is a freelance writer based in Apex.