Campus
A 40-acre (16.2 ha) lake is at the center of the 750-acre (304 ha), wooded campus. Most buildings are of Georgian-style architecture. Many academic buildings and student residences stand around the lake, including the Bell Tower, which figures highly in school insignias and is a replica of the tower that once existed on the men's campus in downtown Greenville. Today, the campus is anchored by its newly expanded 128,000-square foot (12,000 m²) James B. Duke Library. Informally known as "The Country Club of the South," Furman was named one of the 362 most beautiful places in America by the American Society of Landscape Architects.
The fall 1997 issue of Planning for Higher Education names Furman as a benchmark campus for its landscaping. The 1997 Princeton Review ranked Furman fifth in its list of beautiful campuses, based on student ratings of campus beauty. Students are required to live on campus, except senior year when they may participate in a lottery for a chance to live off campus.
On the north side of the lake are the four Greenbelt housing cabins, and the Cliffs Cottage, which is a "green" building built as a showcase home in conjunction with Southern Living magazine. Most juniors and seniors live in North Village Apartments, located on the north side of the Cliffs Cottage. The remaining upperclassmen are either placed in dorm-style residence halls or enter a lottery to receive an apartment in The Vinings, an apartment complex next to campus owned by the university. There are two other residence complexes (called Lakeside and South Housing) which house freshmen and sophomores. The campus also includes an Asian Garden, the centerpiece of which is the Place of Peace, a Buddhist temple moved to the site from Japan and reconstructed by traditional carpenters. A replica of the cabin that Henry David Thoreau inhabited while writing On Walden Pond is located on the west side of the lake.
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