Building Pages

Poet Laureate Robert Frost spoke at the new wing’s dedication. The library contains more than 68,000 volumes, 6,700 microfilm reels, 2,000 videocassettes, 800 compact discs, Internet accessible catalog, and extensive reference collections. Thanks to the generosity of Christopher Hutchins ’56, the school completed a major refurbishment in 2002, which included adapting the main floors for wireless technology and creating group study areas. Special collections include papers of Adlai Stevenson ’18 and John F. Kennedy ’35, along with the Rare Book, Thomas Hardy, and Haffenreffer Autograph Collections, and the school’s Archives.

The building was a gift of Anne Saunderson Archbold, mother of John D. Archbold ’29, in appreciation for the care her son received from Clara St. John, the headmaster’s wife, during an illness when her son was a student. The first floor now houses the Admission and Headmaster’s offices, while the upper two floors serve as a dormitory. Archbold has formed the backdrop for Commencement since the first co-ed graduation in 1978.

Atwater, closest to Christian Street, takes its name from the historic homestead previously on the site. Rosemary Hall was founded in 1890 in a house adjacent to the old Atwater Homestead. In early Rosemary Hall and Choate School years, Atwater House fulfilled many functions, including housing the Lee Wade Memorial Library, later replaced by the Andrew Mellon Library. Mead is named for George Jackson Mead ’11, Choate trustee (1938-47).

This building houses the Communications offices, Information Technology Services offices and Development and Alumni Relations offices. Nearby is Barber Bridge, a gift of John T. Barber ’56.

Bungalow mixes Colonial features such as the barn-like gambrel roof with Georgian touches like the Palladian window over the entrance. Purchased from Judge Choate in 1911, it was substantially remodeled for dormitory use and remains a faculty home and girls residence.

The science center was a gift of Paul Mellon ’25. In 2001 the building was named for Carl C. Icahn P ’98, ’00 in recognition of his $5 million gift in support of the school’s science program.

The three-story building includes 22 classrooms and laboratories, with separate levels for physics, biology, and chemistry instruction; office space; a large reference/study area; a conservatory; and the 150-seat Getz Auditorium, named for donor George F. Getz Jr., ’27, brother of James R. Getz ’29.

It is named for General Henry Beebe Carrington, distant cousin to Mary Atwater Choate. The school acquired it for use as a dormitory in 1919 and it remained a dormitory for eight decades. It now serves as the location for the College Counseling offices.

Its acquisition in 1936 was the results of one of many gifts of Clinton P. Knight Jr. ’12. It serves as a faculty home and girls residence.

McCook is named for Anson T. McCook, Choate trustee (1911-62). Clinton Knight is named for Clinton P. Knight Jr. ’12, trustee (1938-56). McCook was built first, in 1965; “CK” followed in 1966. Designed by Frank D. Winder ’39 and the New Haven firm of Orr, DeCossy & Winder, each structure with its two faculty apartments and corridors of student rooms forms a quadrangle with a central skylight atrium.

Brown Cottage, dating from the 1890s, was moved in 1935; Middle Cottage, built around 1875, was added and the name Combination bestowed in 1937. It is a faculty and boys residence.

Daniel Dodge’37, a Mechanics Prize-winner related to the Dodge Brothers of Detroit, endowed the building in 1945 so that privileged boys would be able to work with their hands and take classes in woodworking and automotive science. It also houses the school laundry.

East Cottage, closest to Elm Street, was purchased in 1920 for use as a dormitory and presumably takes its name from its earlier location on the eastern periphery of the campus. Former United States President John F. Kennedy ’35 lived in a second floor room in East Cottage during his fourth form year at Choate. The faculty apartment on the north end of East Cottage was added in 1955. In the early 20th century, more than a dozen houses along Christian Street were either moved to the campus perimeter or demolished.

Gables, one of these uprooted houses, is a late example of Gothic Revival. Built on Christian Street by the Cowles family, Gables was purchased by the school in 1916 and moved in 1926 to its present location. From 1929 until 1960 it housed the Tuck Shop, a student snack shop. For many years it served as a faculty residence and dormitory. It is now home to the Summer Programs Office.

Like Bungalow, Edsall has many Colonial Revival features, such as the fanlight window over the front door and a Palladian window on the second floor, which dates the original house somewhere in the late 1880s. Edsall was purchased in 1934 from A.D. Edsall.

One of the earliest buildings, Hill House established the architectural tone of the campus. On the main floor is a common room, and offices of the dean of students as well as offices of the associate headmaster/dean of academic affairs, assistant headmaster/dean of faculty, sixth form deans, and fifth form deans. The upper floors are dormitories. Through the common room is West Wing. Built in 1914, it is the stem of the building’s T-shape, and contains the original dining hall with more dorm rooms upstairs. The building of Hall in 1929 extended the building further westward. A 1967 expansion to the south side of Hall is difficult to detect from the oak-paneled interior. Plaques honoring School Seal Prize and Rosemary Hall Alumnae Award winners adorn the walls of the dining hall. A 1999 renovation modernized the serving area and the dining hall was air-conditioned. The fourth form deans have offices on the ground level as does the Registrar.

Some of The Choate School’s first students were housed here; an early photograph of Judge Choate shows him reading to the students beside one of two seven-foot fireplaces. Among Homestead’s original features is a small door on the stairs that leads to a passage around the chimney, lending credence to stories that Homestead was a station on the Underground Railroad. Sold to the school in 1933 by Hunt Atwater ’03, Mary Choate’s nephew, Homestead has been a dormitory since 1936.

It features six USTA (Unites States Tennis Association) regulation courts, a clubhouse with a large meeting room, and two offices for coaches. The 1,200 square-foot brick clubhouse, with its Georgian architecture and slate roof, blends well with the neighboring Memorial Circle architecture.

It is named for Worthington Johnson ’32, who chaired the fund drive to restore the building after a 1976 fire. Equivalent to two city blocks in length, the building is an excellent example of Palladian symmetry, consisting of a central block—with its dramatic glass cage—connected to two dependencies. The center includes two basketball courts, international squash courts, a wrestling room, and three courts which can be used for tennis or volleyball; a suspended 1/10 mile indoor track and an ergometric training room for crew. The 2002 addition to the Athletic Center, designed by Herbert Newman and Partners includes a state-of-the-art fitness center, a new athletic training room, additional international squash courts, and space for aerobics and dance.

Designed by the Hartford firm of Jeter, Cook & Jepson, which simultaneously oversaw the John Joseph Student Activities Center’s 1979 renovation, the 25-meter pool features eight lanes, two 1-meter diving boards, and a viewing window. Solar panels on the roof heat the poolside and provide hot water for the locker rooms.

Purchased in 1973, it was named in honor of Robert E. Lewis (1917-47), Latin, geography, and mathematics teacher and baseball coach.

The building was the gift of Charles A. Munroe in memory of his son Logan ’33, who died shortly after World War II. Logan Munroe, built in 1947, and nearby Nichols, erected the following year, were the first dormitories designed to house faculty members with families, as opposed to single masters.

A British scholar from Cambridge university and Trinity College, Dublin, Ms. Lowndes became joint headmistress with Caroline Ruutz-Rees in 1910. Between them, they gave 79 years of teaching and guidance to the girls of Rosemary Hall.

Lowndes house, built in 1896 by Robert Stevens, was purchased from E. Seward Stevens ’29 in 1957. It is a girls dormitory.

Until 1962, when the Lower School was discontinued, it was home to first and second formers (seventh and eighth graders). The upper three floors are now third form (freshman) dormitories; and the third form deans’ offices occupy the first floor. At the garden level is additional dormitory space. Built in 1921, “Mem” honors the 15 Choate alumni who died in World War I. The faculty apartment behind Memorial House was added in 1956.

Architect Lewis Coffin ’08 was also the designer of the Johnson Athletic Center ; Henry Polhemus was the father of Martin ’44. Nichols is named for the late C. Walter Nichols Sr.,Trustee (1947-57), father of C. Walter Nichols Jr. ’29, and grandfather of David H. Nichols ’56 and C. Walter Nichols III ’55, trustee 1982-85, 1986-89. Since 1970 Nichols has been home to the school’s third form girls.

The PMAC, as it is known, is a busy hub of arts activity year-round. Pei is perhaps best known for the East Building of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (for which the Arts Center served as a prototype) and for the pyramid-shaped entry to the Louvre in Paris. The dramatic concrete and glass structure occupies a rectangular plot of ground, and is divided into irregular halves by a red-tiled courtyard.

The western portion, with its curved glass gallery facing the courtyard, houses the 850-seat Main Theater. The smaller Chase-Baer Experimental Theater, dubbed the “Black Box,” serves as an underground link between the west and east portions of the building. The eastern portion provides additional gallery space, fine arts studios, classrooms, music practice rooms, the Recital Hall, and The Katz Family Green Room. The PMAC is also the home of the Wallingford Symphony Orchestra.

The building was renovated in 1989 to house the English and the History, Philosophy, Religion, and Social Sciences departments. The renovation was made possible by a gift from Paul Mellon ’25, the original donor. On the second floor is a seminar room named for Lt. Thomas W. Peirce ’42. The Science Hall was one of the most advanced and well-equipped science halls of its day. New York architect Charles F. Fuller gave the red brick building white pediments and cornices like the Andrew Mellon Library across the street. The building is strongly reminiscent of the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia, but the widow’s walk atop the central pavilion also emphasizes the school’s New England heritage. The Rotunda houses artifacts and treasures from Rosemary Hall’s Greenwich campus, including two sculpted angels from St. Bede’s Chapel. Needlepoint chapel kneelers, made in 1940 by students and alumnae to commemorate Rosemary Hall’s first half-century, hang on the Rotunda wall.

A faculty house, it was renamed in 1988 for Charles “Chuck” Pierce, history and English teacher (1945-77) and director of admission.

Built in 1960, it was designed by Cheshire architect Gordon MacMaster.

It has been the headmaster’s residence since 1997. It was named for George F. Porter, mathematics teacher (1925-67), baseball coach, and director of studies. It was moved in 1958 from Beaumont Avenue to North Elm Street to make way for St. John Hall.

It serves as an infirmary with 11 beds and with a physician on call at all times. In addition Pratt houses the Counseling and Community Service Offices, and The Spears Endowment for Moral and Spiritual Education.

It is named in memory of Ernest E. Quantrell, trustee (1942-61) and father of Morton Quantrell ’42.

The rink named for Courtenay Hemenway, hockey coach and history teacher (1911-54) was a welcome addition after years of skating on the Infirmary Pond or on flooded Gunpowder Creek Field. In 1967 the rink was enclosed through the generosity of the family of William C. S. Remsen ’39, captain of the 1939 hockey team.

The white-shingled house dates from the 1920s and was purchased in 1982. It is a faculty residence and a girls dormitory.

Located on upper campus, is one of a group of modern brick buildings built in 1971 for Rosemary Hall’s return to Wallingford. The architect, James Stewart Polshek, (whose firm built Bill Clinton’s Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas), strove to replicate some of the old charm of the Greenwich campus while combining modern structures with the more traditional buildings at Choate. It houses the financial office and the human resources office as well a dining hall, known as the Ruutz-Rees Commons, used for special events and meetings.

The structure started out as a small white farmhouse built in the 1780s by Dr. John Andrews, husband of Caleb Atwater’s daughter Abigail. It was purchased in 1837 by Roderic Curtis, a descendent of one of the 38 founders of Wallingford, who intended to live in it temporarily while he built a grander home where Hill House now stands. Around 1850, after his neighbors refused to sell him the land, Curtis built his ideal mansion around the walls of the existing farmhouse. Curtis House was home to two generations of St. Johns and, in the 1970s and 1980s, Principal Dey and family, and in 1990s, Headmaster Edward Shanahan and his family. It served continuously as the headmaster’s residence from 1908 until 1997. Modeled after Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford, the building is a prototypical example of Gothic Revival with its diamond-paned casement windows, steep gables, and bracketed eaves. Through a gift of the late Larry Hart ’32, Curtis House was renovated in 2002 as an alumni guest house, “The Sally Hart Lodge,” in honor of his late wife.

A master at period revivals, Cram also designed Archbold. Built on what used to be a corn field, the Chapel was enlarged on the south end in 1967 and the Zurn Organ, given in memory of John Henry Zurn ’43, was installed in 1970. A pair of wooden candelabras carved in the shape of angels, which once stood in St. Bede’s Chapel on the Rosemary Hall campus in Greenwich and were restored by art teacher and sculptor Reginald Bradford (1976-present), were a gift of the Class of 1986. The “Creation” tapestry, hung in the transept in 1986, the work of weaver Silvia Heyden, was a gift of the Rosemary Hall Class of 1921. The carillon chimes were donated by Mr. and Mrs. William Erdman in memory of their son, William Price Erdman ’24. There are 10 bells, the smallest of which weighs 250 pounds, the largest over a ton. The bells are played for special services and automatically ring on the hour and quarter hour. The clock, constructed by Seth Thomas clockmakers, was donated in memory of Holman Hall ’22. The weathervane that tops the Chapel is a square-rigged brig named “Adonis.” The ship, which has two masts with rigging, spars, and tackle, is a symbol of the church as well as of commerce. The chapel was rededicated in 1998 and named for Headmaster Emeritus Seymour St. John ’31.

This residential complex opened in 2008 and houses eight faculty families and 84 fourth form students in 20 doubles and 42 single rooms. Tenney House was dedicated in honor of Rosemary Hall alumna, Rebecca Agnew Tenney ’27, who bequeathed $6 million in her will to begin the construction of the new residence halls.

Originally named ’62 House for the year of its construction, it was renamed in memory of James Spencer, chemistry and physics teacher (1962-82), science department head, and Wilfong chairholder, who died in 1982.

An ancestor of Squire Oliver Stanley built the western half of the house in the 1690s; the Squire probably added the larger eastern wing in 1770. In 1774, George Washington stopped at the house to take tea, after stocking up on supplies for the Revolutionary Army at Caleb Atwater’s Store and Powder Mill. In 1896, Judge and Mary Atwater Choate founded their boys school in the Red House. Purchased from the Atwater family in 1938, it served as a dormitory until 1975, when it was converted to a guest house for school visitors. In 1987 Squire Stanley was moved 300 feet back from its location on the corner of Christian Street to reveal the Humanities Center’s other face. In 1998 it was refurbished into a girls residence.

The building honors the legacy of George and Clara St. John, beloved figures at The Choate School for 40 years. In the foyer, five panels of hieroglyphs represent the Semitic Cultures, the Assyrian and Babylonian Cultures, the Egyptian Culture, the Phoenician and Greek Cultures, and the Aztec and Mayan Cultures.

It was built on the former site of the Choate House, which in 1897 was the first school building. For many years Steele Hall housed administrative offices; today it is the home of the Languages Department, including the 32-station Language Media Lab. The Copy Center is located on the ground floor.

It was named in 1988 for Donald D. Walsh, Spanish and French teacher (1928-59) and assistant director of studies.

The white Queen Anne-style house is a boys dormitory and is named for its previous owner, Mrs. J. Woodhouse.