Eaglebrook School - History

History

1922–1928: Howard Gibbs, and Amherst graduate and friend of Headmaster Frank Boyden of Deerfield Academy, had a vision for a younger boy’s boarding school that combined a healthy outdoor life with education. He wanted boys to develop their innate abilities, discover new interests, and gain deserved confidence. Eaglebrook Lodge, a sanitarium and former hunting camp on 27 wooded acres in the hills of Western Massachusetts, seemed the ideal place for his school In 1922 Mr. Gibbs bought the property and transformed it and its outbuildings into Eaglebrook School. He enrolled 15 boys that first year.

In the 1920s Howard Gibbs asked Roger Langley, the athletic director, to start a skiing program for students' winter recreation. It was the first full-time junior ski program in the United States.

1928–1966: After Mr. Gibbs’s unexpected death, Thurston Chase, an Eaglebrook teacher and recent Williams College graduate, took over the school. Under his leadership, student enrollment expanded to 165 students, and the physical plant grew to include a gymnasium, tennis courts, learning center, science building, and four new dormitories.

1966–2002: When Thurston Chase retired, his son Stuart Chase ’47, assistant headmaster at New Canaan Country School in Connecticut, became Eaglebrook’s headmaster. Stuart Chase saw the school grow to 175 boarders and 58 day students. While he was headmaster, the school bought 500 adjacent acres and added new playing fields, a track, a modern ski area with snowmaking and a chair lift, two new dormitories, a swimming pool and a hockey rink.

In 2002, Andrew Chase ’73, son of Stuart, grandson of Thurston, and Eaglebrook’s former director of development, became headmaster. He still holds this position.

The campus has undergone extensive massive upgrades since the mid-1990s. Baines House and the Thurston C. Chase Learning Center have been renovated. The Schwab Family Pool, and the McFadden Rink at Alfond Arena and a new track and field facility have been built in the late 1990s, and two new dormitories, Kravis House and Mayer House, were completed in the early 2000s. In 2007, a major renovation was undertaken on Flagler House, Halsted House, and Taylor House. The Learning Center was extensively renovated at that time, also. During the summer of 2010, the Sports Center was renovated, adding two new international squash courts, bringing the total to six, a new student lounge and student fitness room, and a 50-kilowatt solar panel system for the roof of the gym.