Cornell West Campus

Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White, was broadly opposed to student dormitories, believing that boarding houses and fraternities provided a superior living environment.

After Prudence Risley Hall was designed as a women's residence in 1911, efforts began on a men's residential complex on West Campus.

[2] In the 1920s, West Campus was envisioned as fully Gothic in style, connected to Frederick Law Olmsted's plan of a grand terrace overlooking Cayuga Lake.

Rhode Island architect F. Ellis Jackson, of the class of 1900, expanded this plan to include a memorial to the 264 Cornellians who had died in World War I.

The grand terrace was never realized amidst the Great Depression and World War II, and the plans scrapped owing to the rapid postwar expansion in enrollment.

[4] These acquisitions accelerated after the war, with the university removing faculty housing and acquiring fraternities and other small living units around campus.

[6] Cascadilla Hall, the oldest building on campus, was renovated 1983–84, including the addition of a fifth floor, which increased its capacity from 144 beds to approximately 390.

[9] To the north and east of the houses lie the nine original West Campus residences, collectively known as the "Baker dormitories," after George Fisher Baker, the New York City banker who funded their construction, or as the "Gothic halls," reflecting their ivy-covered Collegiate Gothic architecture and construction of local bluestone trimmed in Indiana limestone.

They were designed by Chapman, Evans & Delehanty and Quinlivan, Pierik & Krause and constructed of utilitarian cinder block faced with brick.

[13] Although officially denied by Cornell, some claim that when constructed, they were intended to be temporary housing (as evidenced, for example, by the transitory fiberglass showers) until better structures could be built.

[16] Some students objected to the omission, and raised a fund to add his name; the university stationed a guard at the memorial to prevent his surreptitious addition.

The president of the university, Livingston Farrand, denied the appeal,[17] and in 1934 the funds were instead given to Kurt Lewin, acting professor of education and a refugee from the Third Reich.

[19] This building was demolished and in 2007 was replaced with the Noyes Community Recreation Center, which provides indoor athletic facilities located on Campus Road.