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Hollis Hall is the third oldest building at Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It was built in 1762-63 and renovated over the years, as is evident in this plan, to comfortably house freshmen in spacious wood-paneled double rooms with shared lavatories. A simple brick building that links the 18th and 21st centuries, it is an accomplished example of Georgian architecture, strong yet light and curiously modern in its bold simplicity. It is the only campus building of its age attributed to a professional builder, Thomas Dawes, and makes clear his interest in Palladio. In Dawes’ library is a well-used copy of James Gibbs’ “Book of Architecture” (1739) wherein the façade for “The House of a Gentleman” appears to be the prototype for Hollis Hall as well as for other Palladian buildings by Dawes, each with a great pedimented entry pavilion and flanking wings. Freshmen housed in Hollis over the years include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, George Santayana, John Updike, and Horatio Alger, Jr., among many others.
