Born in New York City, the son of John Sprunt Hill and Annie Louise Watts, George Watts Hill grew up in Durham and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Commerce in 1922 and law degree in 1924. At UNC he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He married Ann Austin McCulloch on September 30, 1924. Following a ten-month honeymoon around the world, the couple made their home in Harwood Hall, the mansion that his grandfather, George Washington Watts, had built.
