Navy House
The following is an article detailing Wellesley's acquisition of the Navy House.
Sent May 26, 1947 to Boston Globe, Post Herald, American Monitor, New York Times, Herald Tribune, AP, UP, INS, Wellesley Townsman.
Use of a former Navy nurses' quarters to house 50 members of the incoming freshman class will enable Wellesley College to expand its enrollment next year to the highest point in the history of the college. While the normal enrollment is about 1500, next year the student body will number approximately 1730.
"Our reasons for enlarging the student body are to help relieve the pressure on institutions with extensive veterans programs and to provide for the most efficient and economical operation of the college," President Mildred McAfee Horton said. She explained that a survey indicated that the enrollment could be increased by 50 students without a corresponding increase in the teaching staff. "Rising costs have resulted in deficits during each of the last three years. Increasing our student body to the number we can teach and house most efficiently is one of the efforts we are making to administer the college with maximum economy," Mrs. Horton stated.
Since an unusually large freshman class was admitted last fall and this year's graduating class is relatively small, without the erection of the temporary dormitory the size of the class to enter next September would necessarily have been sharply curtailed. Present plans call for the admission of 458 freshmen.
The temporary dormitory, once used to shelter WAVES and Navy nurses at the Quonset naval air station, is now in the process of being dismantled and shipped to the Wellesley campus. Work on the foundation is well under way, and erection of the walls is expected to begin within a week. The building is to be ready for occupancy in September.
Navy House, as the new dormitory will be named, will give college authorities an opportunity to periment with several new ideas. The dining room will have panels which may be removed to permit access to cafeteria equipment at breakfast and lunch, and then replaced when waitresses take over the serving of dinner. The steam-tables and other equipment will thus fulfill double purposes, and cafeteria service will conserve labor. The dining room will serve 135 students, including those from Dower and Homestead, neighboring freshman dormitories. A special room will be set aside for study and another for typing, so that students may work undisturbed and undisturbing.
Terming Navy House "a really good building,", Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds Wilford P. Hooper commented upon the finished appearance of the building. No supports will be visible; instead, they will be incorporated into the corridor structure. Insulating board lining the walls will insure quiet in each of the rooms, which will be painted in light colors varying from room to room. Each room will have at least two windows of the house-size small-pane type, and each girl will have a closet.
Occupants of the new dormitory will have the advantage of being closer to classrooms and the library than freshmen living in dormitories in the village of Wellesley. Bordering on Lake Waban just inside the campus gates, the building will be so located that the living room windows will overlook the lake.
Although the one-story building with pitch roof stretched out in a straight line at Quonset, it will be set up here in an L-shape and painted white with green doors. Heat, hot water and electricity will be supplied from the college power plant. Laundry facilities, housed in a special room, will be available to the students.
The patio facing Lake Waban in the back of the Wellesley College Club.
The following article is about the transformation of this location from the Navy House, to the Wellesley College Club, as it now stands.
From the Wellesley College news, May 1963
RENOVATIONS, RAZING OCCUPY WORKMEN AS CAMPUS RECEIVES IMPROVEMENTS
Navy, College Hall II To Disappear
To work or not to work is not the question at Wellesley this time of year. All over the campus papers are flying, typewriters are clicking, heads are rolling - and since all's fair etc. be comforted oh ye of little time for, as the sign says, MEN ARE WORKING too.
The roads under repair are an obvious indication of effort. The original plan was to correct the inevitable settling effect of last year's construction over the summer, but spring rains made necessary temporary resurfacing. This surface will be replaced by permanent black-topping later in the summer.
Further Face-Lifting
By next September other construction workers will have demolished both College hall II and Navy Hall. Remodeled Billings Hall will replace College Hall II as a student activities center, complete with kitchenettes and new and larger meeting-rooms. In place of Navy, a faculty-alumnae center will be built. The symbolic ground breaking ceremony for the new building is scheduled for Saturday, June 9. As yet, the date of completion has not been announced.
The last academic building to be repaired, Whitin Observatory, will also be under construction this summer. Plans are to add a new laboratory to the back of the building and to remodel existing classrooms.
By next fall, the campus should be in apple-pie order once again.