Keller Hall
Site: West side of Westhampton Green
Dedicated: November 25, 1936
Architect: Carneal & Johnston
Size: 20,152 square feet
Cost: $220,000
Rededicated: 1946, named for Dean May Lansfield Keller at the time of her retirement
Renovations: June 8, 1963, Crenshaw pool dedicated
1978, renovation and conversion of administrative offices into housing
1994, removal of gym and pool areas and renovation into part of the Modlin Center for the Arts
The original name of this building was the Gymnasium and Social Center Building at Westhampton College, although it was commonly referred to as the Women’s Center or Women’s Building. It is located on the west side of Westhampton Green, part of the quadrangle made up of North Court, South Court, the Booker Hall of Music, and Gray Court. The front of Keller Hall faces east.
Since its founding in 1914, Westhampton College had had no student commons or gymnasium for students despite the fact that the first faculty member to be hired by Dean May L. Keller was a physical education instructor, Fannie Graves Crenshaw. North Court, the original Westhampton building, had an exercise room. Following World War I, Westhampton students had gym classes in the Red Cross Building, located near the site of the present Booker Hall of Music.
The initiative to build a social center building was led by alumnae of Westhampton College and the Women’s College of Richmond, who were admitted into Westhampton’s Alumnae Association in 1925. As early as 1939 the National Alumnae Association of Westhampton College, led by Leslie Sessoms Booker, asked Douglas S. Freeman, Rector of the University, to name the building after May Keller in recognition of her more than two decades’ service as dean of Westhampton. A letter from Booker to this effect, carbon copied to President Boatwright, is in a Virginia Baptist Historical Society file on Keller Hall. Freeman’s response is not in the file.
Efforts to build a gymnasium for women students intensified by the mid-1930s, after Westhampton began offering a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Education. Westhampton alumnae collected $55,000 to help fund the project.
The building was designed by Carneal and Johnston in the Collegiate Gothic style. A 1936 issue of the Alumni Bulletin describes the building as made of sand-finished brick and limestone “bought with the pennies, dimes and dollars of Westhampton’s daughters and friends.” A plaque in the lobby, unveiled on the day the building was formally opened, recognizes the important role of three women in the development of the college: Dean May Keller; Dr. Susan M. Lough, professor of history; and Fanny G. Crenshaw, professor of physical education.
The building has four full floors, including a ground floor, and a partial fifth floor in the tower. You enter the building through an octagonal-shaped foyer that is two stories high. The foyer has stone walls and an arched ceiling. The main staircase has a carved oak balustrade. When the building first opened, it had 44 rooms, including three large rooms: the gym, a reception room (Keller Hall Reception Room), and a drawing room.
The gym was on the left side of the building, on the first floor. It was two stories high and was 60 x 100 feet, with a visitors’ gallery overlooking it. On the ground level below were locker rooms and showers, as well as offices for the director of physical education and her assistant. In addition, there was a trophy room and a room for visiting teams.
The social center section of the building was to the right of the foyer as you entered. The office of Westhampton’s Alumnae Secretary was located here, and behind that, the 48 x 50 foot Keller Hall Reception Room, with three casement windows and a fireplace. Behind the reception room was a “service room” for preparing teas. A typescript document in a VBHS file describes in detail the reception room as it was when the building first opened. It was furnished with Elizabethan-style furniture, with tall high-backed, tapestry-covered chairs and carved walnut refectory tables. The color scheme consisted of tones of deep mulberry red.
On the ground floor of the social center wing of the building was a large student lounge, mainly for the convenience of day students. As with the Student Center on the Richmond College side, Westhampton’s Social Center was meant to give day students an opportunity to engage more fully in college social life beyond the classroom. The lounge had individual desks, as well as larger tables for group study. The lower level also had a tea room that opened onto a formal garden. The garden, designed by Charles Gillette, is still there today and is a memorial to Sallie Gray Shepherd Perkins, the mother of a Westhampton alumna. Behind the tea room were a serving room and kitchens. The lower level also contained a book store, run by the Westhampton Alumnae Association, and meeting rooms for student organizations.
On the second floor of the social center, there was an office for each of the four classes (first year, sophomore, etc.), a room for large student meetings, and two alumnae rooms, one for Westhampton College and one for the Women’s College of Richmond. In one of the alumnae rooms was a large bronze tablet “recounting chief facts in the history of the Richmond Female Institute and the Women’s College of Richmond.” The Tower Room, located over the foyer, was used by the Music Department. The Margaret James Music Room was on the third floor and was donated in memory of a 1916 Westhampton graduate by her parents, who also gave the college their daughter’s grand piano and library of music. Most rooms throughout the building were decorated with oak furniture of Elizabethan or Jacobean style.[1] The furniture in the Women’s College of Richmond alumnae room was Georgian style.
Students were allowed access to the building every day until 6:30 p.m.; on Wednesday evenings the building was open again from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., and on Sunday evenings from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. Westhampton students had to apply for permission to hold dances, for a fee of $10.00. Only one dance a month could be scheduled. By the mid-1950s, these restrictions had been lifted.
In 1946 the building was renamed May Lansfield Keller Hall in honor of the Dean Keller, who retired that year after forty-two years of service to Westhampton College and the University of Richmond.
For years after the building opened, Westhampton students and alumnae proposed the addition of a swimming pool, but a lack of funds during the depression and then World War II delayed the project. A formal effort to raise funds for the pool began in 1944, seeded with gifts from several classes and a donation from the Westhampton College Athletic Association. In 1959, the alumnae association began a three-year campaign to build a wing that would contain a pool. They raised $183,000 for the project, the University contributed the balance of the funds required.
The Fanny G. Crenshaw Pool was dedicated on Alumnae Day, June 8, 1963. The pool was 11 feet deep and more than 75 feet long, with a diving board given by the class of 1959. The pool schedule included times when women students could bring male friends. The entrance to the pool was through the Emily Gardner Memorial Room. Gardner, who died in 1956, was a 1918 alumna, a prominent pediatrician, member of the Board of Trustees, and chair of the Richmond City Board of Health. Dr. Gardner was the second woman to be selected to serve on the Board, she was appointed in 1937. There were many plaques in honor of Westhampton alumnae in the pool wing.
In 1978, the administrative offices in Keller Hall were converted into housing space. In early 1993, the University announced plans for a new Arts Center, later the Modlin Center for the Arts, which would include space in Keller Hall. The gymnasium and pool areas[2] were removed and renovated to include a studio theatre, student art gallery, art studios, and offices for the Art and Art History department. Some of the rooms in the art studio section of the renovated space still have plaques noting that these rooms are dedicated to the memory of various alumnae.
As of August 2003, Keller Hall contains Global House, a residential program designed to cultivate diversity and interest in global issues. Both men and women live in Global House, on alternate floors.
Sources:
Alley, Reuben E. History of the University of Richmond, 1830-1971
Rosenbaum, Claire Millhiser. A Gem of a College: The History of Westhampton College, 1914-1989
UR website
VBHS building file
[1] When the Deanery was expanded and converted into offices in 1981, furniture from Keller Hall was used to supplement Dean Keller’s original furniture.
[2] The Robins Center had opened in 1972, providing athletic facilities and a pool for both men and women.