Saybrook College - Buildings and Architecture

Buildings and Architecture

The building now known as Saybrook and Branford Colleges was built as the Memorial Quadrangle on the site of what was once the old gymnasium. Designed by James Gamble Rogers, the Memorial Quadrangle saw construction begin in 1917 and finish in 1922. The Memorial Quadrangle was divided in two upon the establishment of the residential colleges, with Saybrook College receiving Memorial Quadrangle's two northern courtyards, whose entrances face Elm Street. The courtyards are named for the towns where students of the Collegiate School studied before its move to New Haven: Saybrook is the western courtyard, Killingworth the eastern. Among the flagstones of each courtyard is a millstone originating from their respective namesakes.

The main courtyards are also decorated with carvings and inscriptions. Around the entryways are the stone heads of various associates of Yale University, including Vance McCormick, former chairman of the Yale Corporation's architectural planning committee, and Russell Chittenden, former director of the Sheffield Scientific School. In Saybrook Court are the arms of several American universities and of Elihu Yale and Edward S. Harkness. In Killingworth Court are the arms of Yale, Harvard, and Saybrook's sister colleges Adams House and Emmanuel College. Each student room is decorated with panes of stained glass from G. Owen Bonawit.

Wrexham Tower, modeled after the tower of St. Giles' Church in Wrexham, Wales, stands in the college's westernmost corner over a very small courtyard of its own. In the tower's base is an inscribed stone sent from St. Giles' as a gift to Yale. On the wall across from the tower's entrance is a plaque commemorating James Gamble Rogers.

Saybrook's freshmen were housed in Lanman-Wright Hall on Old Campus (as were the freshmen of Pierson College). Lanman-Wright Hall was designed by William Adams Delano and constructed in 1912. However starting in the fall of 2011, Saybrook's freshmen will be housed in Vanderbilt Hall. Yale's post office is located in the Lanman-Wright Hall's basement.

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