Heritage Hall was Italianate in design, with a bracketed French Mansard roof and prominent dormers.

[6] The pattern of window repetition on the College Avenue side is broken by the arched, double doorway in the center of the building.

Originally decorated by a simple masonry arch like the windows that surround it, the central doorway was remodeled with a Georgian styled frame and lintel in 1939.

In the over one-hundred-year history of the building, it has also served as the shop and classroom for a federal program of veteran rehabilitation after World War I, and from 1925 to 1959 it housed the University Library.

[6] The structure has bridged several eras in the history of a school that was founded in 1859 as the Valparaiso Male and Female Academy, one of the first coeducational institutions in the United States.

[6] The building of a dormitory reflected the growing success of President Henry Baker Brown who had brought to American higher education a philosophy that emphasized the offering of practical training to meet the wants of students and the making of such an education, vocational as well as liberal arts, available at a cost which reflected a democratic view.

With a faculty that was thorough, and with a student life which emphasized character development, this practical approach to curriculum, offered at the low cost of $8.00 a term, soon attracted an enrollment that was second only to that of Harvard University.

[6] The most famous resident of Heritage Hall was George W. Norris, who served as United States Senator from Nebraska 1913 to 1943.

Mr. Norris remembered the dormitory as a "large three-story building, which provided furnished rooms and board for men for $1.40 a week.