Bancroft Hall was designed in the Beaux-Arts style with its mansard roof and dormer windows by architect Ernest Flagg and its central rotunda and first two wings were built in 1901–06.
A nine-year renovation project completed in 2003 by The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company and RTKL Associates Inc. of Baltimore, Maryland included 1,600 miles (2,600 km) of wiring to equip the building with a modern data communication network.
There are rooms in Bancroft dedicated to each Academy graduate Medal of Honor recipient in the United States Navy or Marine Corps.
Over the Rotunda is a large mural of the USS South Dakota (BB-57), during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in World War II.
This hall contains the honor roll of over 2,660 Naval Academy alumni who have died in military operations; their names are listed by class year on the walls and includes non-graduates and midshipmen.
[7] In the front of the hall, opposite the entrance, is a panel containing the full names and class years of the 963 alumni who are listed as killed in action.