Buildings of Mathey: The Rise of 'Collegiate Gothic'
From the Princetoniana Museum website, "Blair Hall," "Little Hall," and "The Western Wall: Blair, Little, and the University Gymnasium"
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Blair from southeast, ca. 1897"Blair Hall was designed by architects Cope and Stewardson of Philadelphia, who were among the first to apply the Tudor Gothic style to American college dormitories. Blair Hall is considered their masterpiece...When first built, Blair, Little, and the Gymnasium marked the western boundary of the campus. Originally the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks came to the foot of the broad steps leading up to Blair Arch...
Blair was the first and most emblematic of these [Collegiate Gothic] structures. Soaring high above the Pennsylvania railroad station, which then ran to the bottom of the stairs of Blair Tower, this building was both an entrance and a barrier to the campus. As the first structure seen by anyone arriving in Princeton by train , Blair immediately set the tone of the university -- aloof, academic, cloistered; blatant in its assertion of its English roots.
This was entirely appropriate for a rural university. Harper's magazine noted that the Collegiate Gothic style at Princeton 'lends itself picturesquely to the requirements of a rural university, where ancient elms, level stretches of greensward, and masses of clinging creeper add a charm of natural grace unattainable in a city or town.'" -Princetoniana Museum, "Blair Hall"
Blair Hall Facts:
- Date of Commission: 1896
- Date of Occupancy: 1897
- Other Dates in Building's History:
- Dec 1896: Groundbreaking.
- Oct 1897: Building completed.
- 1906-07: 175 foot extension added.
- 1983: Attic turned into dorm rooms by Robert Venturi, Class of 1947, GS '50.
- 1983: Blair east of the tower becomes part of Rockefeller College and Blair west of the tower becomes part of Mathey College.
- 25 Jan 1994: Interior fire in 96 Blair.
- 5 Mar 1994: Room T2 in Blair Tower burned requiring extensive internal repair.
- Architect(s): Cope & Stewardson, Philadelphia
- Donor(s): John Insley Blair ; DeWitt Clinton Blair, Class of 1856
- Named for: John Insley Blair
- Other Agent(s): Stacey Reeves & Son (builder of)
- Materials: Germantown Stone; Indiana Limestone; Slate
- Function: Dormitory
- Style: Collegiate Gothic
Princeton University. Property of the Trustees of Princeton University. Source: Princeton University Archives, Mudd Library, Grounds & Buildings, MP 3
The Dinky, Up Close
"When first built, Blair, Little, and the Gymnasium marked the western boundary of the campus. Originally the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks came to the foot of the broad steps leading up to Blair Arch, which served as the entrance to the campus for visitors arriving by train. This was a convenience for most people but a mixed blessing for students living in Blair; the puffing engine parked below often kept them awake and the soot from its smokestack blew into their rooms..."
-Princetoniana Museum, "Blair Hall"
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Dinky Station II: 1870
Dinky Facts:
- 1864: Railroad Station located a mile from town at foot of Canal Street.
- 1896: Station built near the base of the steps of Blair Hall.
- 1917-18: The station at the steps of Blair torn down and a new train station built along University Place complying with the trustees' desire to remove the station from the center of campus.
Princeton University. Property of the Trustees of Princeton University. Source: Princeton University Archives, Mudd Library, Grounds & Buildings, Box 11
The Development of Residential Colleges: Mathey
As an undergraduate, he twice won the national intercollegiate tennis doubles championship and was captain of the tennis team his senior year. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with honors. After graduation, he began work as a bond salesman and built up a sizeable fortune as a partner in the Wall Street firm of Dillon, Read & Co. He was later Chairman of the Board of the Empire Trust Company and Honorary Chairman of the Bank of New York.
Dean Mathey came to live in Princeton in 1927, remodeling an old farmhouse on the property of the Drumthwacket estate (now home of New Jersey's governor) on Stockton Street. He was an alumni trustee of the University from 1927 to 1931, charter trustee from 1931 to 1960, and trustee emeritus from 1960 until his death; he served at various times on every one of the board's nine standing committees including 34 years on the Committee of Grounds and Buildings, serving as chairman from 1942 to 1949.
In Dean Mathey’s book of Princeton reminiscences, Men and Gothic Towers (1967), he recalled spending a night in Blair Hall, prior to becoming a student at Princeton, and hearing students singing on a "lovely starlit May evening" next to Nassau Hall and enjoying the "medley of sentiment, humor, loyalty to Alma Mater and the nation" that their songs captured. The high school tennis star was struck by "Blair Arch with its spectacular steps, the clock in the tower and the dormitories! Just to think I might some day be living in rooms like these! It seemed then it might be like a knight living in a feudal castle at King Arthur's Court..." (Sources: Alexander Leitch, ed. A Princeton Companion, pgs. 320-321; and Dean Mathey, Men and Gothic Towers [Princeton, 1967], p. 3)
The Mathey College Shield
According to “James Wolf Heraldry,” the Mathey family coat of arms (in its French version) was a silver shield with a red saltire (a heraldic red, not burgundy), containing 5 gold bezants. It is made in the form of a St. Andrew's cross, or the letter X. Its breadth should be one-third of the field. The saltire is also popular in Scottish heraldry (there appears to be a Scottish branch of the Mathey family, with its own coat of arms). It is supposed to have been introduced into English heraldry by the Crusaders, who had received the gold coin while in the East.
The current Mathey shield was designed by a Princeton alumnus, Brody Neuenschwander (GS – ’81) in the early 1980s, at the time of the establishment of the five initial residential colleges and then updated by the Office of Communications in 2007, in preparation for the opening of Whitman College (and the designing of a sixth residential college shield).
The year 2007 was also the moment when Mathey became a four-year college. Prior to then, from 1982 to the spring of 2007, Mathey College had typically housed about five hundred freshmen and sophomores, with two hundred and fifty students in each class. In the fall of 2007, however, Mathey College became a four-year residential college, and thus home for approximately two hundred first-year students, two hundred sophomores, and one hundred and forty juniors and seniors.