The house at 610 North Street often surprises passersby. It breaks the pattern of other houses in this historic neighborhood by facing away from the street. Instead it looks east toward Glenburnie across a wide lawn welcoming the dawn each day. Built in the late 1920s by UNC's first Dean of Women, Inez Koonce Stacy, the house represents her choice to make a new beginning. She commissioned Durham architect George Watts Carr, well known for his houses in Forest Hills, to build her dream house, which shared the sidewalk with her house at 612 North Street.

Built by Chapel Hill contractor Brodie Thompson, the home has high ceilings, a sunken dining room and an upstairs balcony. With a new house and a new career Stacy was able to put tragedy behind her and devote her life to creating a warm and nurturing world for the women of UNC.

The 1944 Yackety Yack writes: "For a quarter of a century Dean Stacy has been supervising Carolina coeds. She has watched them grow from a handful of several dozen to an organized body of 800 women. She has campaigned for funds to build dormitories, and she has had personal supervision over the decorating of all the girls' dormitories that have been built here....Throughout the years at Carolina Mrs. Stacy has not wavered from her goal: higher education for women. Disregarding her emotions and personal feelings, she sticks to her principles and strives to set up for coeds the kind of college she sincerely believes is best for them."

A native of Trenton, Stacy never planned to go into college administration. Born in 1886, the daughter of Simon Everett Koonce and Orpah Brock Koonce, she graduated from the Woman's College in Greensboro in 1907 and taught school in her hometown for five years. At UNC's commencement exercises in 1911 she met Marvin Hendrix Stacy, a mathematics and civil engineering professor, and they were married in 1913.

That same year he became Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, where he served with distinction earning the trust and respect of students and colleagues. He brought his bride to Chapel Hill to live at 612 North Street, in a large white frame house built for her about the same time as the Coker house across the street.

But in 1918 the flu epidemic arrived in Chapel and took the life of UNC President Edward Kidder Graham. Dean Marvin Stacy was appointed acting president, and in January 1919 tragedy struck again taking his life at the age of 41. Later that year president Harry Chase asked Stacy's widow to consider taking the job of Adviser to Women, newly created two years before.

With the advice and support of her friends she agreed and never looked back. In 1942 her title was changed to Dean of Women and at her retirement in 1946 she could be proud of overseeing more than a thousand coeds in four new dormitories constructed between 1925 and 1939. Equally important, the News & Observer could run an article with the headline, "Coeds at Carolina Really Belong Now."

Her achievements, however, did not come without a struggle. The first year of her appointment she "canvassed Chapel Hill homes to find suitable accommodations for the coeds." Fortunately she found an ally in Frank Porter Graham, then a history professor and the cousin of UNC's late president. He supported her insistent request for housing funds from the legislature, saying, "My belief in co-education at the University is a part of my belief in the university." In 1925 Spencer Hall was opened and in the 1930s Kenan, McIver and Alderman were built.

Dean Stacy had strong faith in the scholarship and leadership ability of her women students, not only managing to provide appropriate living space, access to a gymnasium and intramural sports, but helping them create student government opportunities and an honor council. In 1957 at the time when alumnae presented her portrait to the University and asked that it be hung in Spencer Hall, Stacy said,"At all times the girls worked out their problems with a minimum amount of interference. They liked the responsibility."

Earlier in 1922 she had written: "We have here the much maligned, vigorous and independent modern girl. The University girl feels her obligation to herself and to the University; she takes keen interest in her work and strives to keep her social life in sane proportion. Her scholarship is excellent."

A coed in the 1940s said, "It was Mrs. Stacy's faculty of trusting the intelligence and integrity of the woman students that caused us to discuss our problems with her."

After her retirement, when she was succeeded by Dean Katherine Carmichael, Dean Stacy sold the house she had built facing east to the Roy Homewoods. She had enjoyed her dream house, but at the end of her life, which closed peacefully in 1961, she was ready to return to the house at 612.

During those years she shared this home with her niece Orpah Cummings, who worked on the staff of the English Department at UNC. Stacy was involved in community affairs and Ruth Homewood commented, "When a person is sick or in need of a friend Mrs. Stacy is always the first person on the scene." Another friend added, "She is on the go all the time." She was an avid gardener and a great cook. Dean Corydon Spruill once said, "Her chocolate cake is something I'll never forget."

In his memoir of Chapel Hill Robert House writes,"The name and influence of Marvin Stacy continued beautifully in the person of his wife." An alumna summed up the value of her leadership, saying, "Her abiding courage, her gracious spirit and her deep moral character have been influential in shaping the lives of all who came in contact with her."

Out of tragedy Dean Stacy created a life dedicated to others and never lost sight of her vision to provide the best education for the young women of UNC.