The history of Duke Presidential houses follows a path of personal taste, political motive and professional preference that sprawls far past Campus Drive, literally. Throughout its history, Duke reserved residences for faculty and administration.
Former Presidential houses included what are now known as the Undergraduate Admissions building and the Alumni Affairs building, or abodes enclosed in the Duke Forest. Each house, no matter the occupant, was adapted to show each President’s personal flair and idea of what purpose a Presidential House should serve.
Duke University’s first president, William Few, lived in the house that now functions as the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. His successor, Robert Flowers, lived in his personal home, which is now the Office of Alumni Affairs. After Flowers, Arthur Edens resided in the “president’s house,” a residence also used by Few and then Dr. Julian Hart.
Then came the Knight House. Commissioned in 1963, three of Duke’s presidents lived in the house on Pinecrest, starting with its namesake, President Douglas Knight.
Despite the Knight House’s distinguished residents, the house’s appeal was questionable.
“It’s not a particularly warm house, and a lot of people questioned how livable it was,” said John Burness, visiting professor of the practice of public policy and former Public Affairs Chief.
Nothing about the Knight House is identifiably “Duke.”
A few blocks off of Durham’s Academy Road, the Knight house does not fit in with the gothic architecture of Duke’s West Campus, or the Tudor revival style of the Hart House, another presidential home. Alfred Dow, who was an intern of world-renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright, designed the Knight House in 1966, as well as many of North Carolina’s famous modernist homes. The Knight House bears resemblance to one of Wright’s projects, Fallingwater—an iconic home in Pennsylvania. The house is a modern split-level, with wide-open rooms that have glass-panels which allow its guests and residents to look out onto its 436-acre lot, including the Duke Golf Course.
“President Knight was a jazz and modern art fan, and this fits with the idea of Knight’s modernist view of the spaces at Duke,” said Carson Holloway, librarian for history of science, military history and state documents.
In addition to constructing the President’s house, Knight was the visionary behind the development of Mill Village. But, in a politically charged era of the University’s history, the distant location of the house became significant. Burness explained, “a lot of universities around this time were actually making the decision to move the presidential houses off campus, because of student demonstrations.”
Around the country students were occupying the homes of presidents and provosts, but at Duke this wasn’t a viable option. This distance—about a mile from campus—reflected President Knight’s disconnect from the protesters and their objectives. While the protesters argued for a black studies department, President Knight attempted to appease students and the Board of Trustees.
Regardless, Knight embraced his time at the house and used it to the University’s benefit.
“We called it University House. We never looked at it as simply the President’s House,” Knight said in a 2003 press release. “We designed it to serve a major public function, which was that of being the host to many University functions, and at the same time have some qualities of privacy.”
Burness noted that the house’s layout was more suited to University events rather than living.
Following Knight’s presidency, former N.C. Governor Terry Sanford, who served as the University’s president from 1969 to 1985, lived in the house. Later, Nannerl Keohane expressed that she and her husband, Robert Keohane, a James B. Duke Professor of political science, loved living in the Knight House and hosted a number of successful events there, despite the distance.
“I was at first concerned that people would have to drive or go through the forest to go to the Knight House, but people still made it,” Nannerl Keohane said in a previous interview with The Chronicle. Keohane, however, made a concerted effort to have events at the house for students.
“[She] would invite all of the freshman to an event at the house during orientation week,” Burness said.
Current President Richard Brodhead and his wife broke tradition and live in the Hart House—making him the first administrator to live in the house since Hart’s death.
In 2004, the Board of Trustees decided to renovate the Hart House for the first time since the 1960s to prepare for Brodhead’s arrival to campus. The house, which sits on the corner of Duke University Road and Cameron Boulevard, is a closer and more approachable residence. Since Brodhead previously worked at Yale, where the President’s house was on campus, it was a more familiar move.
The Hart House, which was constructed in 1933, has three stunning floors of brick and timber. Duke’s Board of Trustees gave the residence to Dr. Hart in 1960 when they recruited him to be head of surgery. The price of the 50-year lease: $1. Although his wife, Mary Hart, was able to live in the house after Dr. Hart’s death, the Board of Trustees contemplated the future of the house.
“A decision to keep it, rather than replace it, would require the structure to be substantially modernized, and there was a strong sentiment favoring a president’s home on campus and keeping the house as a residence rather than converting it to other administrative uses,” said Nicholas, former chairman of the Board of Trustees in a 2004 press release. “We think it is important for the president’s home to be easily accessible to the campus community.”
Burness noted that there is a fair amount of work to do on the Hart House.
“The house suited the purposes of one or two people living there with relatively little social activity,” he said.
The renovations to the property came at no small cost. Prior to renovation, the house had no air conditioning and antiquated wiring, plumbing and mechanical systems. The property also had to be reconfigured to include better vehicular access, and more access to public spaces for guests with disabilities.
“Being a 70-year-old house, it was time for some major updates and repairs,” Leon Meyers, president of L.E. Meyers Builders, the contractors hired for the overhaul, said in a previous interview with The Chronicle. “It has required a lot of taking apart.”
But to Brodhead, the hard work was worth it. “It’s a particularly lovely building, and it means a lot to me that students and faculty will be able to walk to our home from campus,” Brodhead said in a previous interview with The Chronicle.
Burness noted that the Hart House is easier for students to access, since it is on campus and many students do not have cars to travel further.
The Hart House’s location, perched atop a hill on Duke University Road is only half-way visible behind trees. Designed by Raleigh architect Murray Nelson and constructed by contractor George Kane in 1934, its Tudor style adds a more classic element to Duke’s architectural scheme. From the basement to the top floor, the house underwent major changes—knocking down walls and building up new ones—all while maintaining the structural exterior.
Duke’s nine presidents have lived in a total of six different houses, making a permanent “presidential house” unlikely. The shifts in the houses reflect the importance of an on-campus presidential house and campus trends. Their changing locations, shapes and designs have showcased a variety of style and North Carolina artists, and no matter their function, the houses continue to be a service to Duke.
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