St. Anthony Hall

St. Anthony Hall, completed in 1913 and designed by Charles C. Haight, is the current home of the Yale society known as St. Anthony Hall (1). The building is St. Anthony Hall’s third building and second on the current site (2). The building sits on the northeast corner of College and Wall Streets, with large tower on the corner that is flanked on each side by lower-rise sections of the building. Frederick W. Vanderbilt donated funds for the building and it was constructed in the Late Gothic Revival out of cut limestone in order to match the two Sheffield School dormitories that neighbor it on both College and Wall Streets, which were also donated by Vanderbilt. It was, at the time of its building, the “most expensive and elaborate secret society building in the United States” according to the New York Times (3).

 The original building consisted of both of what are now 483 College Street and 493 College Street, but 493, which held most of the fraternity living quarters, was sold to the University in 1945 in order to defray maintenance costs after the University banned students from living in fraternities and societies (4). Today, St. Anthony Hall is home to the day-to-day operations of the society as well as many special events, including a fall lecture series and the annual Pump and Slipper Ball.

Members of St. Anthony Hall lived in the building until 1946 and US Military officers lived and worked in the building during World War II

The Anthony Trust Association purchased the land where St. Anthony Hall sits today circa 1893 (11). In the same year, a Richardsonian brownstone building designed by Heins and La Farge was built on the property as the second building for St. Anthony Hall, which had its original building at 43 College Street (although this addressing system is no longer in use) (12, 13). By 1901, additional residence halls had been added to the original building in order to house the membership (14).

The brownstone building and accompanying additions were torn down to make way for the present building around 1913 to allow for additional space for the membership and to match the newly constructed Sheffield dormitories on either side, which were built from 1903-1906 (15).

In 1939, the Anthony Trust Association agreed to sell part of the building and corresponding land to the University at the completion of the “college plan.” This exchanged occurred on January 1^st, 1946. A dividing wall was put in place by the University to divide the two plots (16).

Founded in 1868, St. Anthony Hall, also known as the Sigma Chapter of Delta Psi, was one of a slew of Greek letter organizations that were founded at Yale between 1865 and 1890 (7). Membership in St. Anthony Hall was restricted to members of the Sheffield School. St. Anthony Hall and other Sheffield Societies played an especially important role on campus given the lack of sufficient dormitories owned by the school itself. The eight fraternities and societies housed over three hundred students of the Sheffield School (8).

While this was originally a boon to the school, Yale soon began to resent the two-tier status created by those living in the societies. As a result, Yale began to build residential colleges in the spirit of those at Oxford and Cambridge in the 1930s. As part of this plan, the University president at the time, Charles Seymour, decided to ban undergraduates from living in societies and fraternities. This posed a problem for St. Anthony Hall, which gained much of its revenue from income from the rent of members living in the building. As a result, John C. Greenleaf, the chairman of the Anthony Trust Association at the time, brokered a deal in 1939 to sell the dead to the north-most part of the building to Yale (9). This transaction finalized in 1946 after the end of the war and the completion of the college plan. Yale turned this section of the building into what is now the Sociology Department at 493 College Street.

During the war, with so many of its members serving overseas, St. Anthony Hall was home to members of the military who were stationed on campus for recruiting efforts. Army officers lived and worked out of these quarters (10).

Today, St. Anthony Hall is still home to the operations of the society, although no one lives in the building today. In addition to society operations, the society holds an annual fall lecture series as well as other special events throughout the years, including the annual Pump and Slipper Ball, which has been held for over a century and is mentioned in a number of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Sitting strikingly on the corner of College and Wall Streets, St. Anthony Hall marked by the south-most corner of the Sheffield School, its tower overlooking the lower buildings of the college to the south and west. St. Anthony Hall, connecting the two Vanderbilt Dormitories on either side of it, now part of Silliman College, created an L-shape, which in a way isolated the Sheffield school behind it from the College. Across the street, the Scroll and Key society building sits in stark contrast as representative of the split in historical society function between the College and Sheffield. Scroll and Key, with its windowless tomb-like design, is very clearly exclusively a building for society ritual. The windowed visage of St. Anthony Hall in contrast is as much a society building as it is a dormitory for Sheffield students.

Today, St. Anthony Hall is often unnoticed, blending in as planed with the better-known Silliman College around it, unlike other society tombs on campus. Even in this relatively anonymous position, the tower of the building is still a striking landmark of the Yale campus and emphasizes the Yale-dominated central campus, despite not technically being a Yale-own building itself.