It seems that hard coded somewhere in Apache-2.2.17 is the path /usr/local/apache2. I need to have a regular user service the pages. So I set ServerRoot to /Applications/Webserver, compiled with that prefix and make make install no issues. However when I try to start Apache it complains about not finding /usr/local/apache or /usr/local/apache/logs. Is it de-rigeur to use those directories or can I not control this better.
How about using macports to compile the latest source? You can also use xammp project to run standalone updated environment (unless you must compile it they way you do now).