Andrews Hall

Andrews Hall, named for Elisha Benjamin Andrews, president of the University who was instrumental in the admission of women in 1891, was built in 1947, joining Miller and Metcalf Halls and nearly doubling the dormitory capacity of Pembroke College. The wings of Andrews Hall extend beyond the juncture with the other buildings, giving it an overall size of 106 by 345 feet. An important feature was the 61 by 100 foot dining hall in the basement below the blue stone terrace at the entrance to the building. Architect Thomas Mott Shaw used specially colored brick to give the Georgian colonial building a weathered look to achieve harmony with the two buildings which it connected. The contractor was the Gilbane Building Company. The dormitory cost over $1,500,000, furnished by the Brown Housing and Development Campaign with the help of funds which Pembroke alumnae had raised over a ten-year period. The murals in the dining room are of wallpaper printed from hand carved blocks by J. Zuber and Company of Rixheim, Alsace, from original paintings called “Scenic America,” done by Z. Zepelius and Ehramann in 1834 in Mulhouse, Germany. At the dedication of Andrews Hall on November 2, 1947, greetings were received from Pembroke College in Cambridge University in England. The words of Sir Ellis Minns, president of the college, had been received by short wave radio several days before, recorded by the Mutual Broadcasting System and rebroadcast at the dedication by the Yankee Network. Visitors at the dedication were able to see the handwrought silver scroll box in the style of a medieval reliquary which Pembroke College in Brown was preparing to send to Pembroke College in Cambridge. Designed by J. Russell Price and executed by craftsmen at the Gorham Company, the box contained a sheepskin scroll inscribed, “Pembroke College in Brown University sends filial greetings and felicitations from Providence, that city long since planted in the New England wilderness by Roger Williams, to Pembroke College in the University of Cambridge in her six hundredth anniversary year. Esto Perpétua.” The Andrews Hall dining room was used daily until 1969 or 1970 and later for special gatherings.