Eliot Home, identified for its iconic belltower and southwest gate that opens to the Charles River, would be the subsequent undergraduate residence to bear vital renovations as a part of Harvard’s long-term Home Renewal undertaking.
The design part of Eliot Home renewal started in January, with structure agency KieranTimberlake. Exploratory work might be carried out this summer time and if all goes in keeping with plan, building is predicted to start in the summertime of 2025. Eliot’s reimagining follows the three-phase renewal of Adams Home, which is slated to complete its ultimate leg in 2025.
“The overarching rules of Home renewal are to strengthen the fashionable scholar expertise whereas preserving the College’s treasured belongings, together with the tradition and spirit of the Home,” stated Cameron Borgasano, deputy director within the Undergraduate Home Renewal Mission Administration Workplace. “Our objectives are many: to keep up the character of the Home, eradicate overcrowding, construct neighborhood, present accessibility, strengthen the tutor and scholar interplay, enhance student-faculty interplay, and broaden social, examine, and educational areas.”
First opened in 1931, Eliot, named after former Harvard President Charles William Eliot, is likely one of the School’s seven unique Homes. Beloved for its annual fête spring formal and fall charity ice skating present, Eliot boasts a tower room with a piano donated by Leonard Bernstein ’39, a woodshop, a pictures darkroom, and a late-night grill nicknamed “The Inferno.”
Updates to the Home will make the constructing accessible, including corridors to attach the neo-Georgian Home’s conventional vertical entryways, in addition to elevators, trendy mechanical, electrical, and plumbing programs, and air con for frequent areas.
The method is being led by the Eliot Home Renewal Advisory Committee, which incorporates representatives from the Undergraduate Home Renewal undertaking crew, Harvard School Dean’s Workplace, and Eliot Home’s residential dean, school deans, Home administrator, and constructing supervisor.
“The method of working collectively as a bunch has been a really rewarding expertise,” stated Borgasano. “It’s actually bringing in all the voices of the Home, and I feel it’s going to make the design of Eliot Home that a lot stronger.”
Eliot’s scholar residents have shared their renovation concepts via a scholar survey and a well-attended city corridor occasion.
Helen Scarborough ’25, who lives within the Home and co-chairs the Eliot Home Committee, has helped collect resident enter as a member of the Scholar Renewal Committee. She hopes the renovations will carry improved accessibility, in addition to upgrades to the Home’s fitness center and dance studio.
“I actually appreciated that we had that chance to provide our suggestions,” stated Scarborough, who’s concentrating in historical past and science on the drugs and society monitor, with a secondary in world well being and well being coverage. “As college students who’ve buddies in different Homes, we’ve been capable of see what’s labored in Homes which have already been renovated, permitting us to make knowledgeable strategies for Eliot.”
“My dream is to have us stroll out of Eliot in the summertime of 2025 because the sturdy neighborhood that we at the moment are, and protect that over the 2 years that we’re not in Eliot.”
Sue Weltman, Home Administrator, pictured above
Solutions from college students prioritized sustaining the standard really feel of the constructing. A few of Scarborough’s favourite areas within the Home embody the grand eating corridor (extensively thought of the “coronary heart” of Eliot), the grassy courtyard, and a examine nook within the library that may solely be reached through a slender spiral staircase.
“We will keep the historic nature of these really historic areas,” Borgasano stated. “Once you stroll into the eating corridor, it’ll simply really feel a bit brisker. We are going to restore the gorgeous millwork, we are going to refinish the historic lighting fixtures, and strategically insert trendy mechanical, electrical and plumbing programs. Primarily, they’ll seem like they do now, just a bit cleaner and brighter.”
When building will get underway, college students will stay within the Inn at Harvard and in flats on Prescott and Mount Auburn streets, and Massachusetts Avenue.
Sue Weltman, who has been Eliot’s Home Administrator for twenty-four years, stated sustaining camaraderie amongst college students might be her prime precedence.
“My dream is to have us stroll out of Eliot in the summertime of 2025 because the sturdy neighborhood that we at the moment are, and protect that over the 2 years that we’re not in Eliot, in order that once we come again within the fall of 2027, we could have by no means missed a beat,” Weltman stated.
Though she’s going to graduate earlier than Eliot’s renewal begins, Scarborough nonetheless feels invested in serving to form the imaginative and prescient of the Home for future college students.
“Though I received’t get to stay there, I’ve seen how essential Home life has been to my expertise on the School,” Scarborough stated. “Attending to be a part of a neighborhood for 3 years is very nice. You make loads of actually nice relationships, and it’s simply improved my time on the School immensely and I would like future college students to have the identical expertise I have had, if not a greater one, so I need to contribute to this course of in any manner I can.”
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