Farm children know that naming a piglet makes it less likely the quasi-pet will end up on a spit. Ernest Dollar, executive director of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill, is hoping townfolk will apply that lesson to their historic homes.

After a 12-year hiatus, the Preservation Society plans to add plaques to five historic houses in town this week. The 8-inch-by-8-inch wooden octagons inscribed with the name of the house and the year it was constructed will be unveiled during a ceremony Friday, which will mark the end of its annual Preservation Week celebration.

“It's a wonderful way to mark our architectural treasures in Chapel Hill,” Dollar said. “The more plaques we can get, the more preservation-minded we hope people will become about saving their own historic structure.”

The program's reinvigoration came from Edward Smith, an accidental real estate investor and gentleman historian who researched five Chapel Hill abodes in the course of looking for a home for himself. Smith, who until recently had made his career with IBM, pursued historic research as his avocation. In 2006, he bought an aging Arts & Crafts bungalow at 611 E. Rosemary St. Through his meticulous architectural research, he and contractor Diane Eckland, who owns Shade Tree Construction, restored it to its turn-of-the-20th-century glory.

But Smith didn't stop there. He researched the house's lineage, discovering that it was built by Harriet Morehead Berry, who is known in some circles as “the mother of good roads.”

“She was the driving force behind laws that govern major roads between every major city and county seat in North Carolina,” said Smith, before launching into the highlights of Berry's career. Proof of the house's origins came when “the termite guy” crawled under the house with a flashlight and saw Berry's name scrawled on a crossbeam in what appeared to be her handwriting.

That would have been the happily-ever-after point, but more delights lay ahead.

One evening as Smith was basking in the amber glow of his Arts & Crafts lamps, a man knocked on his door and made him an eye-watering offer on the restored house. Smith accepted and used the money to purchase a worn but character-laden house of the same era down the street. He and Eckland again worked up a restoration plan, and Smith delved into the history of this house at 204 Glenburnie St. Its previous owners included a state forester who collaborated with Berry in building the house; Frederick Henry Koch, the founder of Playmakers Theater; a church and an opera star. During the Glenburnie restoration, a buyer made Smith an offer he couldn't refuse, and he set off house-hunting again.

Next, Smith bought a thoroughly lived-in house at 704 E. Franklin St. While he waited for Eckland to finish with Glenburnie, he began researching the history of his latest purchase. The Colonial Revival-style house was built in 1907 by Joseph Hyde Pratt, who led the N.C. Geological Survey and was a visionary for the Blue Ridge Parkway; his company in Chapel Hill built one of the first sections of the scenic roadway. Dr. Warner Wells, a surgeon and UNC Medical School professor who translated “Hiroshima Diary” by Michihiko Hachiya in the 1950s, owned it after Pratt died. At one point, it was a sorority house; later someone proposed to use it as a bed-and-breakfast, but the town said no.

When former Town Councilman Joe Herzenberg's kit house at 6 Cobb Terrace became available, Smith picked that up, too. The house, built in 1915, was one in a cluster of houses on the cul-de-sac developed by Collier Cobb and constructed from a kit ordered from a catalog put out by the Aladdin Co. Everything needed to construct the house was shipped in by rail, the pieces numbered for easy assembly. Smith's research showed that kit houses were popular through the 1950s, especially during times of fast growth and prosperity. Civil rights activist Jane Burns Cutler Bahnsen lived in the house from the 1950s through the mid-'70s. Plans to elect Howard Lee as Chapel Hill's first black mayor were strategized in her living room.

Smith's former neighbor, Sandra Freeman, asked for his help in researching the history of her American Foursquare at 615 E. Rosemary St. He discovered that Marvin Stacy, acting president of UNC after Edward Kidder Graham died of the Spanish influenza, lived in the house for awhile, as did Maj. William Cain, a Kenan professor of math and engineering who began his career in the Confederate Army at age 13.

“Part of what keeps me going is the fascinating details and the web of connections among the people,” Smith said. Harriet Berry, for instance, was the sister of Kent Brown's wife and worked for Joseph Pratt and co-wrote papers with John Holmes.

“Uncovering forgotten history is interesting,” Smith said. “I can fill in the missing pieces.”

About 15 to 20 houses received a plaque when the program was instituted in 1996. To be considered plaque-worthy, a house must be historic, have a distinctive architectural style and be associated with a historical event or person. Originally, the Preservation Society required historic houses to be built before 1900, but as time moves forward, so does the cut-off requirement, as long as the houses are at least about 100 years old.

Homeowners must submit their research of the house's history to the Preservation Society. Any house included in the town-and-gown architectural survey done two years ago automatically qualifies. “The architectural historian who put that together for us surveyed all the houses in town and chose which ones architecturally would be important enough to list in there,” Dollar said. “Everything chosen would be eligible for a plaque, because we've done the research for those homeowners.”

Smith has his eye on another in town. It's not on the market — yet. But maybe Smith will make an offer the owner won't be able to refuse.

Ernest Dollar should keep the plaque order form handy.

Nancy E. Oates can be reached at neoates@earthlink.net.