Blackstone Hall - Annex entrance, south facade

Blackstone Hall - Exterior

"New and shiny Blackstone annex may be your dormitory home while here. It houses 38." The Blackstone and Harlan Annexes were projected and completed after World War II to meet the needs of the influx of veterans returning to studies. "While such Beaux Arts designs are usually carried out with buildings in neo-classical architectural styles, Charles Frost and Alfred Granger (already the architects of the chapel and library next door, as well as of Lois Hall on North Campus) cast their anglophile architectural vocabulary over the buildings envisioned in the Morris Plan. The architectural precedents for Blackstone and Harlan are the Tudor-era college buildings at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. This red brick Tudor style, enlivened with decorative gables and limestone finials on the roof-line, is purposefully less formal than the Collegiate Gothic chapel next door. Blackstone and Harlan both feature Frost & Granger's distinctive brick balustrades, also found on Carnegie. President Richard Harlan's intent in building these men's dormitories was to entice fraternities to move from their off-campus houses onto campus, creating a stronger college community. The College newspaper in 1908 touted both the electric lighting and the oak-paneled lounges of the new dorms, which were the last word in technology and luxury. The first occupants of Harland Hall were the brothers of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity; Blackstone boarded the brothers of the Phi Pi Epsilon. The wrought iron gate, formerly called Fraternity Gate, has never served a practical purpose, but extended the College's symbolic welcome to the students of Lake Forest Academy, then situated on South Campus." (Neal Van Winkle on Blackstone and Harlan Halls in "Lake Forest College, A Guide to the Campus," 2007, pp. 49-50).

ca. 1948

still image

eng

TIFF

BLDG 1.18.2.9

228 pixels per inch

3056 × 3991 pixels

photograph

25.4 x 20.6 cm ( 10 x 8 1/8 in)