Stanhope Architectural History

Although the fire in Nassau Hall in March of 1802, was immediately thought to be a disaster, it in fact led to the immediate physical expansion of the College of New Jersey's facilities, and enable scientific and literary pursuits to flourish within their expanded quarters. President Smith had set off on a fundraising trip through the South that took him away from the school for over a years. His efforts, combined with the generous outpourings from other American colleges, the townspeople of Princeton, and alumni, enabled the College to proceed with the restoration of Nassau Hall and to erect two smaller pendant buildings at its northwest and northeast corners. The designing architect for all three projects was Benjamin Latrobe, although the construction was carried out in his absence and not always according to his plans. In July of 1803, the trustees ordered that the roofs be made out of slate, rather than iron, and gave the supervising committee the authority to alter Latrobe's plans as they saw fit.[1]

Latrobe donated his services to the College, as was his custom with academic institutions, but he was greatly displeased with the way the affair was handled. When approached by a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania to design a building for their campus, he wrote:

I am willing to reconsider, alter, and amend to any extent they [the trustees] please, but it will be impossible for me to consent to furnish a single idea to them but on this condition. I have been in two or three instances so disgraced, (especially at Princeton), by the alterations made without my knowledge in my plans that I shall as long as I live feel the chagrin of knowing that my name is connected with such buildings. My only object is to be useful to the cause of literature, and my own reward the pleasure of being so, but in the attempts I allude to, I have earned nothing but vexation."[2]

Nevertheless, Latrobe later wrote, when approached to design a building for Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, that

The renovation of Princeton, the College of Carlisle, the medical schools of Philadelphia, are among the most gratifying exertions of my art which I have ever made; and the power to promote institutions on which so much of human happiness depends, consoles for the many mortifications which are ;inseparable from the practice of my profession.[3]

He even considered sending his son to Princeton.[4]

The two pendant buildings were originally known as the Library and the Refectory. Both were constructed out of local sandstone, and matched Nassau Hall not only in material but also in their general tripartite massing of space. Latrobe's design called for the central door, at the head of a 15-step staircase, to be topped by a rounded window. This detail was similar to that of the near doorway in Nassau Hall. Both buildings were begun in 1803 and finished by late 1804.

The Library held the books that had escaped the fire, and those that were quickly donated to replenish the collection. In addition it contained meeting rooms for the Whig and Cliosophic literary societies, study halls for the freshmen and sophomores, and a recitation room for the President's classes. More room was freed up when the literary societies built their own halls in the late 1830s. The Philadelphian Society, an organization for Christian students that eventually merged with the YMCA, used the building until its new headquarters, Murray Hall, was completed in 1879. In 1870, the room that had come to house a cabinet of natural history was greatly improved, and Princeton's natural history museum was born.[5] At this time, the building became known as Geological Hall. Shortly afterward, the basement windows were completed renovated, and the spaces occupied by the Philadelphian Society were also remodeled.[6]

In 1878, extensive remodeling again took place, in anticipation of the removal of the Philadelphian Society to its own hall. It was at this time that the entrance to the central door was shortened, and the lower floor was readied to house administrative offices.[7] The building became known as the College Offices.

In 1914, the Board of Trustees sought a more appropriate and dignified name for the administrative, yet historic and beautiful building.[8] Stanhope Hall was chosen in honor of the College's seventh president, Samuel Stanhope Smith, during whose presidency the building was erected.

During a 1930 renovation, Stanhope revealed two Revolutionary era treasures. One was the Steward's record of the expenses of the College, and the second was an ledger book which had been used first by a member of the Continental Navy, and then later by someone cataloguing the College's library books.[9]

During the early 1960s, the building again underwent major renovations, this time in response to structural weakening in the masonry (which has since been shored up with a steel frame) and the demolition of Reunion Hall, which required a reshuffling of administrative offices. Today Stanhope houses the Publications offices on the second floor and Public Safety on the first and basement floors.