It is notable for failing despite the involvement of four educators of stellar reputation, and an offer of an apparently generous endowment, later withdrawn under unclear circumstances.
In 1937, Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan successfully established the Great Books curriculum at St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland, which continues to the present day.
A 1946 newspaper story says that "the college's Damocles sword again threatened to drop in 1944, by which time St. John's had lost its two greatest friends in the government."
The college's board of trustees was unable to get a definite answer from Congress, then in control of federal land-taking, on whether St. John's land would be taken, and Barr wanted to secure "a home free of the endless menace of eviction.
The choice of this location may have been influenced by Scott Buchanan, who, according to Samuel Sass[5], was familiar with the area, having graduated in 1912 from Pittsfield High School.
The site, officially known as Bonny Brier Farm, already contained eighteen buildings, including an inn, a dormitory, and a boathouse located on 2,500 feet (760 m) of lakeshore frontage on the lake known as Stockbridge Bowl.
Mellon had attended St. John's as a freshman in 1939, despite already holding degrees from Yale and Clare College, Cambridge, and studied there until 1942 when he left to enter the Army.
In more detail, the trustees of the Old Dominion Foundation—Mellon's fund "felt it was unwise to authorize invasion of principal for fear that the remaining endowment would be insufficient to accomplish the purpose of the gift.