Its first Master,[1] was Mathematics Department chairman Julian Lowell Coolidge, who also instituted Monday-night high table.

[1] Historian Elliott Perkins was the first to hold the position of Resident Dean (until recently known as the Allston Burr Senior Tutor) then was Master from 1942 to 1963.

For each Arts First event, the first weekend in May, there is a courtyard performance of the 1812 Overture, during which those not part of the official orchestral ensemble are encouraged to assist on kazoos; in lieu of cannon, hydrogen-filled balloons are ignited by the House chemistry tutor; and until recently (see below) the performance would climax with the role originally scored by Tchaikovsky for authentic Russian zvon (a "bell" in the Slovakina language or "bell sound" in Russian), being played (appropriately enough) by Lowell's own authentic Russian zvon.

The committee operates separately from the Harvard Undergraduate Council (UC), to organize student events and manage funding.

The motto is Occasionem Cognosce ("Recognise Opportunity") (In more prosaic terms, a shield with a black field displays a right hand cut off at the wrist and grasping three arrows, one vertical and two crossed diagonally, in silver.

The eighteen bells were bought in Russia around 1930 by Thomas Whittemore with the financial aid of millionaire Chicago plumbing magnate Charles R. Crane‍—‌who reportedly paid merely their value as scrap‍—‌just as they were to be melted down by Soviet authorities.

[8] Like those seen today on Dunster and Eliot Houses, Lowell's tower was originally meant to be a clock-tower‍—‌Lowell's in particular is reminiscent of Philadelphia's Independence Hall, although it was actually modeled after a Dutch church.

The bells originally hung in Moscow's Danilov Monastery (now the seat of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church) and were installed with the help, at first, of musician Konstantin Konstantinovich Saradzhev, and Vsevolod Andronoff, a former resident of the monastery[8] They range in weight from 22 pounds (10 kg) to 26,700 pounds (12,100 kg, and known to Lowell House students as "Mother Earth").

In their places were hung newly cast near-replica bells obtained with the financial assistance of the Link of Times Foundation, created by Russian industrialist Viktor Vekselberg.