Editor’s note: In a previous version of this story, the captions refer to the Faculty House as 125 years old. The Faculty House is 105 years old. The Herald regrets this error.
As a casualty to many in the WKU community, the day Henry Hardin Cherry feared has arrived.
Over two years ago, the Faculty House, which has sat behind Cherry Hall for over a century, closed after a decorated history of hosting WKU student life.
Its history began with the laying of the cornerstone for the building on July 9, 1920.
“The spirit of service is bringing the Senior Building into existence, and the spirit of service must vitalize its present and its future, or else it will become material deadness, a decaying building without a soul,” Cherry, WKU’s first president, said at the laying of the cornerstone.
The building now faces an uncertain future.
WKU President Timothy Caboni announced the demolition of the Faculty House during a May 1 open house for the release of Cherry Hall renderings.
Caboni said an 80% decline in usage from 2017-2022 and “maintaining the structure is no longer fiscally responsible.”
University Spokesperson Jace Lux said the demolition of the Faculty House is unscheduled pending bids, but is intended to be completed by fall 2025. Lux said Clark Construction Group is overseeing the project, which is expected to cost under $100,000.
The Landmark Association of Bowling Green, a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve historic and cultural resources, issued an open letter to the Board of Regents and Caboni after he announced the plans to renovate Cherry Hall and demolish the Faculty House. The group also offered its services to relocate and rehabilitate the Faculty House.
“The narrative around the Faculty House, and particularly how it was built is an important part of the narrative of this university, and it reflects some of the important values of the university, particularly the collaboration between faculty and students,” WKU Professor and University Historian David Lee said.
The history of the house started in summer 1920, when WKU students devised a plan to solve two problems: a blight which was killing cedar trees on campus, and the lack of a student structure. The junior and senior classes banded together with faculty to secure a loan of $6,000 to construct the Faculty House, or the “Senior House” at the time.
A group of students and several professors relinquished their summer vacation to “cutting the dead cedar on the Hill and working it into the Senior House,” according to a November 1920 Regents meeting.
“It really (was) a collaborative faculty student project in which faculty members, in particular, invested financially as well as some sweat equity, and students invested a good bit of sweat equity,” Lee said.
The students and staff acquired blueprints from Murphy Brothers of Louisville to flesh out the project, according to a December 1926 Herald article. Construction ended in summer 1921.
Students utilized the Senior House as a social space until 1923, when the library relocated into the house. It was occupied by the library until 1928, when construction of Gordon Wilson Hall was completed and it became the library.
The building returned to a student center in 1928 and assumed the name “Cedar House.”
In 1940, several faculty members from the original crew that built the Cedar House helped refinish it on its 20th birthday, according to an October 1940 Herald article.
“For twenty years the Cedar house floor has stood up under every kind of an assembly from a formal reception to a world series audience via radio, and at long last gets its reward by having its surface refinished,” the article stated.
The Cedar House became the Faculty House when it was remodeled in summer 1960 according to an October 1979 Herald article.
The Faculty House became home for the College Heights Foundation from 1959-1967, the Credit Union from 1974-1983 and was simultaneously used by the Faculty Senate as well as retired faculty.
Throughout its history, the Faculty House hosted receptions, weddings and banquets according to archival data and Herald issues.
“While an important part of our university’s past, the Faculty House has well exceeded its lifespan,” Caboni said.
Caboni said the house’s history will be honored “within the renovated Cherry Hall.”
Lux said there are currently no plans to construct anything on the plot on which the Faculty House currently sits.
“It’s difficult to speculate about how people will feel about change, but most individuals who have been in the Faculty House during the last decade would likely agree that it has exceeded its functional life and is no longer viable for repair,” Lux said.
In a public FaceBook group, Pat Huggins Keller reflected on her memories of the Cedar House on a shared post about Cory Dodds’ letter to the Herald.“There is so much history there and I am sure it could be repaired and updated to honor all of (the) activities that have occurred there as well as the people who made those memories,” Keller commented.
