A fresh face on our oldest building
The oldest building on our campus, Cunard Hall, has gotten a facelift this year!
Work began this spring, refreshing all of the woodwork in the eaves, making them look as good as new.
Then, early this summer, the biggest part of the project began: removing the aging porch enclosure, which had fallen into disrepair, and refreshing Cunard’s facade. The new look offers a clean, open patio “looking out to sea” in front of a brown, stucco-style first-floor exterior surface that blends well with the faux-brick sheathing that covers the rest of the building.
This was only the latest in a long series of refreshments and renewals to Cunard Hall.
Built in 1852 as the home of Mary and Edward Cunard, of shipping-line fame, their former estate became the new home of Wagner College when we moved to Staten Island from Rochester, N.Y. in 1918.
Our first addition to the Italianate villa was a dining and kitchen extension, completed before we moved into the new campus. Today, that extension houses our Registrar’s Office.
After World War II, when the campus overflowed with G.I.s returning home, we enclosed the front porch to provide expanded dining space for our resident community. After Campus Hall opened in 1957, with its brand-new dining hall (now a performance center), Cunard’s former dining space was converted for office use.
The last major renovation came in 1977 in the form of a complete facelift. Cunard’s stucco surfacing was removed, exposing the original brick, which was then shielded with the durable faux-brick sheathing that protects most of the building’s exterior.
