The Carolinian [May 6, 2008]

              May6-May 12,2008
THEaronnian
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF UNCG
www.carolinianonline.com
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UNCG softball team sweeps
Furman PAGE 11
Homes restored out of desire for community
Rebekah Cansler
Staff Writer
Just off Lee Street, one can find
numerous blocks of houses that
each have their own character
from being built in the 1920s-
1950s.
Mr. Bulent Bediz, a painter and
sculpture, bought a house on Lex-ington
Avenue in 1976. His house
sits right of Lee Street between
Aycock and Tate. In the last 20
years, he has bought surround-ing
properties around him, one
by one, to restore and keep their
historic and unique quality.
"I didn't do this for the money.
This is not what makes money,"
Bediz said. He looks at each house
and determines what the house
wants and needs to make it the
best home possible.
When Bediz started, he had
around five houses and over the
years he collected more. He now
owns several blocks in the sur-rounding
area of his home. He is
not quite sure how it happened,
only that he wanted to take care
of the homes and their period
and architectural character.
"It just sort of mushroomed to
a lot of houses. I didn't plan it,"
said Bediz.
The houses are rented to stu-dents
and faculty. He charges
$300-450 per person. He com-mented
that many of his renters
were friends that had decided to
live together and split the cost
of a house instead of a smaller
apartment. Each home has 2-4
bedrooms and 1-2.5 baths. These
houses have large kitch-ens,
high-value appli-ances,
fireplaces, wood
floors, but most valued
is their character. One
house has a claw-foot
tub to match the time
period in which the
house was built. In an-other
house, there is a
dresser built into the
wall—little touches that
houses built today never
have. Some houses have
fenced in backyards and
the houses Bediz owns
allow pets.
And the houses are
even green! Before this
large movement to
move to a green society,
Bediz was utilizing the
ideas that are now be-ing
pushed. In his own
home, he added on a
large back porch. Half
of the wall area is made
of large windows that he
salvaged from a school built in the
1800s. These windows reach from
floor to ceiling. He also pointed
out the flooring was made from
the slate blackboards used in
that school. When the sun comes
through the large windows, the
floor stores the energy and after
the sun has set, it releases the heat
and keeps his back porch warm
in the winter.
Bediz also stated his opinion
on the new apartments, which
equals a bad consequence for the
environment. Many builders cut
down natural surroundings to
Bulent Bediz, owner and restorer of the
projects.
PHOTOS BY FSKKAHCANSltt
houses off Lee Street, stands In front of one of his
make room for their apartments.
The homes Bediz rents are built
within their environment. Some
of the trees surrounding the
homes are older than the homes
them selves, dating back to the
early 1900s.
Originally, Bediz wanted to cre-ate
a community of artists. Being
so close to UNCG, he had an ad-vantage.
Some of the houses have
studio rooms attached to them
or he has built them on the back.
But now, Bediz just wants a place
where there was a sense of com-munity
like there was when the
houses were built
in the 1920s.
This is a neigh-borhood
revital-ization
project for
the UNCG com-munity
whether it
is students or fac-ulty
that live there.
Bediz has the uni-versity
and city of-ficial
in agreement
that restoring the
houses would be a
fantastic, positive
movement for the
neighborhood.
There are 20
houses now rent-ed
of the 70 Be-diz
owns. He ex-pressed
a desire to
see students inter-ested
in restoring
old houses. One
year, he had stu-dents
from UNCG do a summer
laughed, saying that he was very
unorganized at the time and if
anyone wanted to do that again,
he would have to be more orga-nized
now that he knows what
will occur.
But all in all, he just wants to
see the neighborhood revived
and students to be happy with
their homes.
"The neighborhood needs to
come into a renaissance," contin-ued
Bediz. "All these homes have
a solid architecture and allow a
lot of room for living."
These houses are on the web at
bediz.com/forrent. There is a pic-ture
and short paragraph about
what each house has. There is
also contact information for Bu-lent
Bediz
Website
helps
beginning
businesses
Lili Johnson
Staff Writer
Have a great idea for a busi-ness
but just don't know where
to start? Perhaps Studentbusi-nesses.
com can help. Accord-ing
to the website, Studentbusi-nesses.
com provides an "online
platform enabling university
students around the world to
manage their ideas, promote
their businesses, and connect
with professionals interested
in serving startups... In short,
our website serves as a dynamic
and interactive online directory
for entrepreneurial students
around the world, as well as the
professionals who seek to access
them."
Travis May and Vivek Ramas-wamy
began Studentbusinesses.
com in September of 2007 from
Harvard College and now has
over 800 members. The two stu-dent
entrepreneurs recognized
the need for a structured website
that provides students and re-cent
alumni access professional
advice.
May, currently a junior at
Harvard and co-president of the
Harvard College Entrepreneur-ship
Forum, is from Cary and so
has began focusing on schools in
North Carolina. May and Ra-maswamy
are interested in add-ing
UNCG to their list of N.C.
SEE WEBSITE ON PAGE THREE
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