Forest Hills, Durham

Living & working in Forest Hills, Durham

Forest Hills is a historic residential neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina, encompassing 150 acres of rolling, wooded terrain. Established in the early 1920s as Durham’s first automobile suburb, the neighborhood was designed by landscape architect Earl Sumner Draper with curvilinear streets that follow the area's natural topography. Bounded roughly by University Drive, Kent Street, Bivins Street, and the American Tobacco Trail, the neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The dominant housing types are single-family homes built between 1923 and 1955. These structures showcase Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Tudor Revival, and English Cottage architectural styles, ranging from bungalows to large estates like the Mary Duke Biddle Estate. Outdoor recreation and daily leisure center around Forest Hills Park, which contains a playground and the historic Forest Hills Clubhouse built in 1927. Residents also have direct access to the American Tobacco Trail, a multi-use path running along the eastern boundary.

While Forest Hills is primarily residential, the adjacent University Drive corridor features local dining and retail options, such as Foster's Market and Guglhupf Bakery, Cafe & Biergarten. For remote-work options, Guglhupf serves as a workspace, while nearby downtown Durham provides dedicated coworking locations, including Provident1898, Durham Bottling Company, and BioLabs. Connectivity to major employment hubs in the Raleigh-Durham area is facilitated by NC Highway 147 (Durham Freeway), which links directly to Interstate 40 and places Research Triangle Park within a 10-to-20-minute drive. Duke University and its medical center are less than a 10-minute drive to the northwest. Local public transportation is provided by GoDurham, with Route 7 (Forest Hills - S. Roxboro - MLK Pkwy) and Route 10 running along University Drive, offering regular bus service to the central transit hub at Durham Station.