Meet the Emerging Designer and Developer Who’s Making Durham, North Carolina, Modern

Alicia Hylton-Daniel’s epiphany arrived in the aftermath of a 2002 house fire in Durham, North Carolina. Although an artist at heart, she had chosen the more practical path of working as a paralegal and studying for her LSAT exams. Then came a bang on her door in the middle of the night and a shout that her house was in flames. As she watched it burn, she suddenly realized she had no passion for the law. "The fire gave me a moment to reflect on how very unhappy I was at the time," she says.

Later, working with her insurance company’s contractors, whom she describes as a "good ol’ boys" network, proved exasperating. But she became immersed in the building process, and a lightbulb went on. "It was like, ‘Can I do something in this field?’ " she says. "I got really excited about going back to school for interior design at age thirty-one." She headed to Meredith College in Raleigh and never looked back.

During a portfolio review in 2008, a Raleigh architect asked her to visit his firm the next day. When she did, she was offered a job. She stayed for seven years, mostly doing interior design for commercial office spaces and restaurants. Then, back in Durham at a different firm, working as a project manager/interior designer, she decided to take the general contractor’s exam. From there, she and her husband, Roger, set up their own design/build firm, in 2017. She handles the design, while he locates properties, secures funding, and minds the budget.