It was the stately home of the University’s cofounder and first president, and once stood alongside a handful of other Victorian-era faculty houses and cottages lining what was then the edge of campus.
Today, the A.D. White House still sits grandly atop its knoll—with a large circular driveway curving gracefully out front and a spread of lovingly cultivated gardens at back. But now, the three-story villa is located at the heart of a much-expanded campus.
“On its hillock, crowning all, stood the President’s House … which can only be called a mansion [and] still pleases the contemplative eye,” Morris Bishop 1914, PhD 1926, wrote in A History of Cornell.
“The detail, the interior finish, betray White’s liking for fine workmanship and for uplifting symbolism.”
Along with Sage Chapel and Sage College, the house was “romantic Upstate gothic, quaintly pinnacled and bedizened,” Bishop wrote, describing these additions to the growing campus as embodying “the taste and soul of Andrew D. White.”
Jump ahead to 2024: for the past half century, the building has been home to the Society for the Humanities, an Arts & Sciences research institute that brings scholars together for seminars, courses, and interdisciplinary projects.
Read the full story on the Cornellians website.
