Homewood Campus: A Blend of History, Architecture, and Evolution at Johns Hopkins University

The Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University, a sprawling 140-acre site in Baltimore, Maryland, is more than just an academic institution; it's a living tapestry woven with threads of history, architectural innovation, and social change. From its origins as a private estate to its transformation into a modern university campus, Homewood reflects the evolving values and aspirations of both the institution and the city it calls home.

From Estate to Campus: The Genesis of Homewood

The story of Homewood begins with Charles Carroll, Jr., who established the 120-acre Homewood estate in 1802. In 1839, the Wyman family acquired the property. The institution itself was founded in 1876 in the Mount Vernon neighborhood, but by 1894, the need for expansion became apparent. William Wyman, a university board member and then-owner of Homewood, collaborated with his cousin William Keyser to reassemble the divided estate. This reunited property was gifted to the university in 1902, setting the stage for the creation of the Homewood campus.

Architectural Vision: Shaping the Campus Landscape

In 1904, an advisory committee, including Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., selected the architecture firm Parker and Thomas to design the new campus. Early planting plans were submitted by Warren Manning, and by 1914, the Parker and Thomas plan was realized. The original core of the campus was laid out in a "T" shape, comprising two adjacent, perpendicular quadrangles, crossed sparingly by walking paths and framed by Federalist-style buildings.

Keyser Quadrangle, forming the shorter, east-west axis, is bordered on the west by Gilman Hall, the university’s first academic building, completed in 1915. Canopy trees line the quadrangle, framing views of the stately building. A brick-paved plaza connects the Keyser Quadrangle to Wyman Quadrangle, forming the longer, north-south axis to the south.

The Architectural Style: A Nod to Tradition

The architectural style of the campus largely follows the Federal style of Homewood House. Most newer buildings resemble this style, being built of red brick with white marble trim. This deliberate choice reflects a desire to maintain a cohesive aesthetic that honors the history of the site.

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Gilman Hall: A Focal Point of Academia

After a competition in 1904, the winning campus master plan by Parker and Thomas took inspiration from contemporary trends in Beaux-Arts campus design as well as the historic Carroll family house and colonial architectural traditions. After some delays acquiring the funds to begin construction, the architects (now Parker, Thomas and Rice) revised their master plan, adding Gilman Hall to the west end of the quadrangle as a focal point for the campus. A circular drive at N. Charles Street on the east linked Homewood with the edge of the new quadrangle. Gilman Hall’s main facade blends enlarged features of both Homewood and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, namely a classical portico and a central bell tower.

The design of Gilman Hall also reflected the research-based educational philosophy pioneered in the United States by Johns Hopkins University. The humanities and social science department classrooms and offices were arranged around a library reading room and stacks. Each department also had access to a dedicated stacks area for its subject matter. The large size of Gilman Hall was masked by building it into a hillside so only two stories and the bell tower were visible from the quad while two additional stories were accessible from the rear.

In 2010 the New York City firm Kliment Halsband completed a major renovation of Gilman Hall. The $59M renovation to this 145,000-SF historic building restored it to its former grandeur. Upgraded classrooms and faculty offices were infused with modern technology while retaining original architectural elements. Unique aspects of the renovation included conversion of the former library stacks to 15,000-SF of additional academic space and conversion of an existing large interior light shaft into a new 4,000-SF atrium. The existing MEP/FP systems were replaced throughout the entire building and closely coordinated with the building’s historic character.

The centerpiece of the $73 million renovation is the addition of a three-story atrium built over the existing central courtyard. The exterior of the building, however, will remain largely untouched. The work includes nineteen stained glass windows presented to the university in 1930 by Mary King Carey in memory of her father, Francis T. King, an original university trustee.

Science and Engineering Buildings: Expanding the Academic Footprint

Georgian Revival science and engineering department buildings with laboratories added to the Homewood campus’s original ensemble of academic buildings. Also built 1913 to 1915, these buildings were designed by other prominent firms such as Carrère and Hastings (Chemistry), Joseph Evans Sperry (Mechanical and Electrical Engineering), Wyatt and Nolting (Physics), and Walter Cook and Winthrop A.

Levering Hall: A Hub of Student Life and Social Change

The Levering Hall we see today is actually the second building to carry this name. In 1889, Eugene Levering-Baltimore-born banker, university trustee, and active member of the temperance-promoting Anti-Saloon League-offered $20,000 to the YMCA to construct a facility serving Johns Hopkins University, then located in a handful of buildings in midtown Baltimore.

The YMCA was provided space at Homewood within the 1803 Merrick Barn, where a lunchroom and a barbershop had been added. As the campus grew and took shape, this arrangement proved inadequate. The idea didn't sit well with everyone. That the YMCA, by its very name, is a men's organization wasn't the issue-Hopkins was still decades away from welcoming its first female undergrads. Rather, some in the university community, including Jewish and Catholic students and groups, voiced concern about a Hopkins "student activities center" (as Levering's role was sometimes described) being owned and operated by a religious organization founded by Protestants. They expressed their displeasure in newspaper editorials and letters to the editor.

In the end, the dust-up dissipated and Levering was completed in 1929 for $225,000, which included funds from an insurance payout and another $30,000 from Mr. Levering. A cafeteria filled much of Levering's lowest floor, as it does today, making it the oldest continuously operated dining space on campus. Student groups and clubs met in the hall, and it's where The News-Letter and Hullabaloo set up shop.

But it was the arrival of Chester Wickwire in 1953 as the executive secretary of the Levering Hall YMCA (and later, university chaplain) that ushered in Levering's most dynamic era. Wickwire arrived at a time when the city was mired in Jim Crow laws. Ending racial segregation and fostering greater connection between Hopkins and Baltimore were two of his major causes. And one of his most effective tools for tearing down walls? Music.

In 1959 Wickwire brought jazzers Dave Brubeck and Maynard Ferguson to town for the first integrated concert at the Fifth Regiment Armory. He ultimately brought a plethora of musicians to Baltimore, often to Shriver Hall, including Nina Simone, Charles Mingus, Joan Baez, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. In addition to music makers, Wickwire invited a broad range of speakers to campus, from the aforementioned Hefner (asked to discuss the "Playboy philosophy") to labor leader Cesar Chavez.

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Perhaps Wickwire's greatest legacy is the Tutorial Project, which he launched in Levering in 1958. This program pairs Baltimore schoolchildren with Hopkins students who serve as homework helpers and scholastic mentors. It's still going strong more than 65 years later, serving some 120 elementary school students each semester. The Tutorial Project is still headquartered in Levering, however, where its offices are, uh, kind of a trip. They inhabit the second floor, which had been home to a 1960s-style coffee house and social space called The Room Upstairs, and later, Chester's Place. This is where, in 1968, Wickwire hired Baltimore artist Bob Hieronimus, fresh from creating album art for Elektra music and palling around with Jimi Hendrix, to paint a mural on a wall.

The YMCA ended its involvement with Levering in 1969 and sold the building to Hopkins. Five years later, the Glass Pavilion was built along with additional meeting rooms and a theater as part of an addition officially called the Hopkins Union. While Wickwire continued using the hall as his homebase for the hard work of social justice, Levering was also increasingly becoming a party spot.

Levering, it turns out, was home to the last student-focused campus bar, The Rathskeller. By all accounts, it wasn't much to look at, essentially being a repurposed section of a basement cafeteria. But when we queried Johns Hopkins Magazine readers about it, many alums chimed in with warm memories of The Rat, as it was known to its fans.

If The Rathskeller was a "step forward" in Hopkins' search for a social hub, then the Bloomberg Student Center is a humongous leap. On a recent visit there, folks were playing pool and socializing in the Levering Lounge. A young man practiced Mozart on an upright piano in the Great Hall (a barrel-vaulted space built for lectures). Downstairs, students were tucking into lunch as they've been doing since 1929. (Though it's unlikely that falafel plates, lemongrass dumplings, and pork carnitas tacos were on offer back in the day.) Upstairs, Hieronimus' sprawling mural continues to offer its colorful, cryptic messaging from the '60s. Indeed, it was painstakingly restored by the artist in 2013 and can be viewed whenever the Tutorial Project's offices are open.

Expansion and Modernization: Adapting to the Future

The university undertook a major renovation of the Homewood Campus in 2000-2002. Asphalt, vehicle-accessible roads throughout the campus were replaced with brick-paved walkways. The traffic circle located in front of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, facing North Charles Street, which for many years had existed as a half circle that connected to campus roads, was completed, in line with the original Master Plan for the university. Traffic was redirected to the periphery of the campus and greenery was added throughout the campus, with the goal of making the core areas of Homewood safer, more pedestrian-friendly and more attractive.

A number of new buildings, including Clark Hall (home to the Biomedical Engineering department), Hodson Hall (a multi-use classroom building), the Mattin Center (a student arts and activities center), the Ralph S.

A second campus expansion, called Charles Commons, was completed in September 2006. It is located across North Charles Street from Homewood, at 33rd Street between Charles and St. Paul Streets. The Decker Quadrangle development constituted the last large building site on the contiguous Homewood Campus. Its first phase included a visitors and admissions center (Mason Hall), a computational sciences building (Hackerman Hall), and an underground parking structure, which together created a new quadrangle, south of Garland Hall, named in honor of Alonso G. and Virginia G. Decker. Construction was completed and the new buildings and quadrangle were dedicated in 2008.

In early December 2008, the Trustees proposed the construction of a new Library addition, the Brody Learning Commons, costing $30 million. The building features a quiet reading room, 15 new group study rooms, a new atrium and a café.

The Milton S. Eisenhower Library: A Hub of Knowledge

The Milton S. Eisenhower Library (called MSE by students), is the Johns Hopkins University principal research library and the largest in a network of libraries at Johns Hopkins. This network, known as 'The Sheridan Libraries', encompasses the Milton S. Eisenhower Library and its collections at the Albert D. Hutzler Reading Room in Gilman Hall (the library before Eisenhower was constructed, and informally called The Hut by students), the John Work Garrett Library at Evergreen House and the Peabody Institute Library and adjacent public historic George Peabody Library at Mount Vernon Place, across from the Washington Monument. Opened in 1964, the Eisenhower Library was named for the university's eighth president, Milton S.

The Eisenhower Library collection houses over 3.8 million volumes, 121,000 journal subscriptions and thirty miles of shelf space. Strengths in the humanities include German and Romance Languages, Philosophy, and the Ancient Near East. In science and engineering, collection strengths include biomedical engineering, chemistry, and environmental engineering. The Library also offers an extensive array of electronic resources, including full-text books and journals, specialized databases, and statistical and cartographic data. Only two of the MSE library's six stories are above ground, the rest are beneath. However, the architects designed the building so that every level has windows and natural light. The Brody Learning Commons, an appendage to the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, opened in August 2012 and is the most recent of the Johns Hopkins' libraries (known as Sheridan Libraries) to open. Primarily a study space, it houses a variety of different areas for study including group study rooms, a quiet reading room and a cafe.

Homewood House: A Glimpse into the Past

Homewood House is a museum on the Homewood Campus that centers around Baltimore life in the early 1800s. The house has a two-story Georgian structure and it was built in 1958. It was built to attract Milton S. Eisenhower to come to JHU. Eisenhower was its first resident in 1959, and it continues to house presidents. However, from 1971 to 1996, three presidents declined to occupy it, so it was used to house university guests and as administrative offices.

In 1976 the Secretary of Interior designated Homewood a National Historic Landmark, citing that its architecture is an example of the best of the Federal style.

The Palladian-style, Federal-era mansion that is home to Homewood Museum was built in the early 19th century for Charles Carroll of Homewood; his wife, Harriet Chew Carroll; and their five children. Charles Carroll of Homewood came from one of Maryland's most distinguished families. His father, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, was a Declaration of Independence signatory and Maryland's first senator. His grandfather, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, was the son of one of Maryland's early settlers, Charles Carroll the Settler, who acquired nearly 50,000 acres of land before his death in 1720.

Unveiling Hidden Histories: Enslaved Families at Homewood

Simply acknowledging that fact and exploring the historical significance of it occupies the heart of a multiyear research project at Johns Hopkins, part of a broader movement toward reconsidering the way we talk and think about historic house museums and heritage sites in America.

"The new tour, Families at Homewood, focuses on three of the families that lived at Homewood: two enslaved and one that was slave-holding," Rose says. "We're telling the stories of Cis and Izadod Conner, who raised a family here. They had six children and, later, they had as many as 13 children. What happened to them? What were their lives like? More Than A Name: Enslaved Families at Historic Homewood, an exhibition co-curated by eight undergraduates in a spring 2018 class offered by the Program in Museums and Society, focuses on those three families: the Carrolls, the Conners, and William and Becky Ross and their children.

"The historic house story has traditionally always been about the family, the white family that owned the house," says Abby Burch Schreiber, the researcher who, along with Rose, taught the More Than a Name class and co-curated the exhibition. "As a way to kind of emerge from that tradition in a fresh way, we're thinking of families.

"You can't understand an estate like Homewood, a farm that had agricultural laborers but also a grand mansion that had a number of household staff, [without understanding the people who were doing the work]," Schreiber said during the talk, noting that Homewood was part of a larger system of labor and agriculture among the Carroll family properties. The story of the Carrolls and their lifestyle at the estate, by necessity, she said, needs to include the stories of everyone else who lived on the farm.

What the "Enslaved at Homewood" grant has enabled the museum to achieve is a step toward presenting a more inclusive interpretation at Homewood Museum and providing a richer understanding of the place where the Johns Hopkins University is located. "As we found new material, we started to ask different questions," Rose says. She notes that the museum's docents will be the first trained with the new tour, and she imagines that once the public engages with it, new questions will emerge from that process, too.

Lacrosse Legacy: A Storied Tradition

The Lacrosse Museum and National Hall of Fame, maintained by US Lacrosse, is on the Homewood campus adjacent to the home field for the lacrosse teams, Homewood Field. Johns Hopkins lacrosse teams have represented the United States in international competition. At the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam and 1932 Los Angeles Summer Olympics lacrosse demonstration events Hopkins represented the US and team members received Olympic Gold Medals. This was the only such accolade in the history of US college sports. Opened in 2012, the Cordish Lacrosse Center houses both the men's and women's lacrosse teams. The structure, which cost $10 million, was entirely funded by private investors, the largest of whom was former Johns Hopkins lacrosse player David Cordish.

Shriver Hall: A Venue for Culture and Community

Shriver Hall, designed by the firm of Buckler, Fenhagen, Meyer and Ayers, was begun in September 1952 and completed in 1954. In 1939 Alfred Jenkins Shriver, a local lawyer who specialized in estates and testaments, left the university the residue of his estate to build a lecture hall. According to the conditions of the will, the building's walls were adorned with murals depicting the Hopkins class of 1891 (Shriver's class), ten philanthropists of Baltimore, ten famous beauties of Baltimore (as chosen by Shriver), the early Hopkins faculties of philosophy and medicine, the original Boards of Trustees of the University and Hospital, and Baltimore clipper ships. In addition, statues of President Daniel Coit Gilman and William H. Welch, first dean of the School of Medicine, flank the entrance to the building.

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