Berry College

Berry College, Mount Berry, Georgia

Berry College report to the Getty (PDF) 100MB

Berry College, encompassing nearly 28,000 acres in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, was founded in 1902 as the Boys Industrial School to provide educational opportunities for the children of the Southern Highlands. The majority of the buildings on the campus were constructed by students during founder Martha Berry's lifetime (1865-1942), and reflect a variety of historic styles from log cabins to neoclassical and Georgian-revival style academic buildings. The college is also rich in archaeological resources. Grant funds will support a survey of campus buildings and sites to produce a preservation master plan.

Berry College received a Getty grant in 2005 for $150,000 to support campus heritage planning.

Historic Designation(s): Berry Schools Historic District (college included within these boundaries, including campus area known as "The Stretch," National Register of Historic Places).

Report Summary

Purpose: The school will compile its first comprehensive list of campus buildings and sites, with relevant evaluations, in order to establish prioritieis for balancing preservation and functional needs and production of a preservation master plan.

Historic Designation: Berry College includes a 5,300-acre National Register Historic District featuring campus elements 1900-49. This historic district overlaps with portions of the Chieftains National Historic District and the Historic Landmark/Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. Surveys show Berry College may contain more archaeological sites than any other U.S. college campus.

Martha Berry began the campus in 1902 as an industrial training school (“integrated education of head, heart, and hands”). Berry College now has 28,000 acres in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Students built most of the campus buildings 1901-42, with styles ranging from log cabin to neoclassical and Georgian revival, and with designs by architects Capt. John Gibbs Barnwell (1901-05?), Coolidge & Carlson, and Cooper & Cooper; landscapers Robert B. Cridland and Hubert Owens; and development planners Whitfield & King (1908).

Site Chronology:

• Possum Trot church (1850)
• Victory Lake / dam
• Keown Picnic Center aka Rome & Northern Railroad Station (1910)
• Oak Hill (Berry homestead) (1880; 1920’s landscape designed by Robert B. Cridland)
• Brewster Hall (dorm) (1901)
• Roosevelt Cabin aka The Cabin (Martha Berry residence) (1902)
• Boxwood Cottage aka Rhea Cottage (dorm, now faculty/staff residence) (1903)
• Oakwood Cottage aka Bonnie Brae (infirmary, now faculty/staff residence) (1904)
• Inman Hall (dorm, now faculty/staff residence) (1905)
• Hoge Building aka Recitation Hall (academic with library/auditorium ?-1905, administration 1922-64, handicrafts program 1997-2003, now campus safety/faculty research) (rebuilt after 1905, possibly brick façade; wood-frame Neoclassical design by Capt. John Gibbs Barnwell)
• Poland Hall (dorm, now faculty/staff residence) (1907, Queen Anne)
• Gate of Opportunity (1908, landscape possibly designed by Robert B. Cridland)
• Louise Cottage (Girls Campus dorm/classrooms) (1909, log, designed by Capt. John Gibbs Barnwell)
• Sunshine Shanty (Girls Campus dorm/classsrooms) (1909, log, designed by Capt. John Gibbs Barnwell)
• Early Child Development Center aka 7 Girls Campus dorm/classroom buildings (1909, log; designed by Capt. John Gibbs Barnwell)
• Barnwell Chapel (Girls Campus) (1909, log, designed by Capt. John Gibbs Barnwell)
• Crozer Hall (dorm—originally for girls) (1909, Georgian / Colonial, burned in 1927; designed by Whitfield & King)
• Emery Hall (dorm—originally for girls) (1910, Georgian/Colonial, burned in 1948; designed by Whitfield & King)
• Original Cabin (1870’s but rebuilt 1910’s)
• Glenwood Cottage (1915)
• Blackstone Dining Hall (1915, brick)
• Pine Lodge (dorm for Mountain Farm School/older-boys) (1915-?)
• Mt. Berry Chapel (1915, brick; 1922 landscaping designed by Robert B. Cridland)
• Sunshine Cottage (possibly girls dorm / handicrafts center) (1916)
• Cherokee Lodge (Mountain Campus) (1919)
• Mirror Lake (1920’s)
• Swan Lake (1920’s)
• Meacham Hall (Mountain Campus) (1921)
• Lemley Hall (dorm) (1921, brick, colonial revival)
• House o’ Dreams (Berry retreat) (Mountain Campus) (1922, designed by Coolidge and Carlson; 1923 landscape designed by Robert B. Cridland based on Castle Nemi, Italy)
• Campbell School of Business aka Green Hall aka New Recitation Hall (1922, brick Neoclassical; landscaping designed by Robert B. Cridland; expansion 1997)
• Hill Dining Hall (1923, rustic stone)
• Hamrick Hall (classrooms) (1923, rustic stone)
• [Henry and Clara] Ford Complex (New Girls Campus) (1925-30; landscaping designed by Robert B. Cridland):
  • Clara [Ford] Hall (dorm) (1925, stone)
  • Clara [Ford] Hall dining hall (1926, stone)
  • Recitation/Library/Recreation/Laundry Hall) (1928, stone)
• Friendship Hall (dorm) (1925, rustic stone)
• Memorial Library (1926, brick neoclassical; landscaping designed by Robert B. Cridland; expanded 1957)
• Pilgrim Hall (Mountain Campus dorm) (1929, rustic stone)
• Old Mill (grist) (Mountain Campus) (1930, stone)
• Eugene Gunby Equine Center aka Poultry Farm (Mountain Campus) (1930)
• Thomas Berry Hall (male dorm) (1931)
• Mothers’ Memorial Building (female dorm/classrooms) (1931, designed by Cooper and Cooper; 1967 expansion overseen by Cooper and Cooper)
• Laughlin Shops (1933?)
• Moon Building aka General Store (1934?)
• Chik-fil-A (WinShape) Retreat aka Normandy Dairy Barn/Agricultural Complex (Mountain Campus) (1930-37, French Eclectic/Normandy vernacular; designed by Cooper & Cooper; repurposed 1984)
• Stone Chapel (Mountain Campus) (1937, rustic Gothic)
• New library (Mountain Campus) (1940, rustic stone)
• Barstow Memorial Library (Mountain Campus) (1941?)
• President’s House aka Wright House (1941?) (1961 landscaping designed by Hubert Owens)
• Martha Berry gravesite (1942)
• Morton Hall (dorm) (1953)
• Lamar Westcott Building aka Miscellaneous Operations (1955, Gothic Revival)
• Residence cottages (mid-1950’s, traditional/neocolonial wood-frame)
• Dana Hall (male dorm) (1959, expanded 1960’s)
• Hermann Hall (1964)
• New Gate of Opportunity (1964)
• Evans Hall aka Trustees Hall (1967)
• Krannert Student Center (1967)

Planning Process:

• Team identified historic master plans and previous surveys
  • Whitfield & King development plan (1908)
  • Cooper & Cooper Main Campus development plan (1937)
  • Student Government Association Repair and Restoration Effort (1984-86)
  • Dober, Lidsky, Crain and Associates development plan (1996-2003)
  • Lord Aeck Sargent Architecture architectural condition assessment (2001)
  • Stone House Group facilities assessment (2005)
• Team identified Secretary of the Interior’s standards (heritage criteria) and National Park Service’s preservation briefs
• Volunteers supplemented the project team during Alumni Work Week
• Consultants, student interns, and a faculty coordinator gathered pre-institutional data from historic maps
• February-March 2008, faculty coordinator led student interns in an archaeological field survey based on Georgia’s state Natural, Archaeological and Historic Resources Geographic Information System
• February-March 2008, team reviewed archival data and stories to being an historic landscape survey, finishing by compiling field notes and photographs
• Compiled data fed into the new Berry Archaeological and Historic Resource Geographic Information System (BAHRGIS)
• Team used Secretary of the Interior’s standards to identify campus elements, including landscapes, contributing to the surrounding historic district, reviewing whether elements were correctly or incorrectly listed as significant
• Team decided to expand Secretary of the Interior’s standards for significance to add non-period elements contributing to the continuity of the campus environment and history [emphasis added]
• Team organized the campus around 11 significant landscape elements (character areas), creating area lists of archaeological resources, landscape resources, and archaeological sites (potential resources)

Outcomes: Products

• Curricula for preservation-related academic programs: historic preservation, public history, anthropology. Survey list of 11 campus areas, 126 architectural resources, 29 historic landscape features, and 43 new archaeological sites.
• Geo-satellite system for locating these campus buildings and landscape features: Berry Archaeological and Historical Resources Geographic Information System (BAHRGIS). Using BAHRGIS data, the team displayed campus elements on aerial photographs (except in the case of unexplored archaeological sites).
• An illustrated condition report for the elements--significant buildings, landscapes and sites--within each campus area.

Outcomes: Policies and Plans:

• Consider the creation of three academic programs: historic preservation, public history, and anthropology.
• Follow the University System of Georgia approach, coordinating preservation activities under a single staffperson.
• Balance strategic and master planning with their impact on cultural resources under all circumstances—facilities or programs, work by staff or contractors, on-site activities of outside groups.
• The overarching policy is to “formalize the existing philosophy of conservation with necessary information and tools for decisions." Ongoing photodocumentation of treatments and repairs will create a knowledge base of “building deficiencies and treatments.”
• The Team foresaw important results from heritage preservation:
  • Fiscally responsible asset use
  • Appealing surroundings, encouraging student recruitment and retention
  • Responsible approach to the environment
  • Economic promotion (new jobs, new private investment, increased tourism)

Unique Features

• Use of alumni manpower
• Step-by-step procedure for nominations to the Register of Historic Places, plus list of contract resources
• Discussion of vernacular landscape features
• Approach to the campus as a “vast outdoor museum of nature, history and architecture,” despite the decision against revealing the location of archaeological sites. Elements considered for their “contribution to the continuity” rather than simply to culture of the campus environment and history.
• Focus on the following materials: vinyl siding, Portland cement, and wood roofing shingles.

Advisors

Individuals on the project team include

• 6 campus representatives (Jennifer Dickey, Dr. Bruce Conn, Rebecca Roberts, Mary Oberlies, Lori White, Anna Zimmerman),
• 3 staff from Lord Aeck Sargent Architecture (Rob Yallop, Susan Turner, Rajiv Wanasundera);
• 2 staff each from The Jaeger Company (Diane Warling, Anne Wifer) and from Archaeology and Graphic Information Systems (GIS) (Dr. Major McCollough, David Michaels)

The team enlisted college alumni on-site during Alumni Work Week plus faculty and student interns, as well as staff from Lord Aeck Sargent Architecture, The Jaeger Company, and Archaeology and Graphic Information Systems (GIS).

Berry’s college archives supported this project, along with the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office, Floyd County Public Library, Sewannee: University of the South, and the Martha Berry Museum, plus Dr. Steve Briggs, Dr. Scott Colley, Dr. Ouiuda Dickey, Alan Storey, Mark Hopkins, and Kenneth Gibbs.

Credits and Links: Campus Contact

Mr. Stephen R. Briggs
President
Berry College
PO Box 490039
Mt. Berry, GA 30149-0039
Ph: (706) 236-2281
F: (706) 238-2238