Bryn Mawr College Deanery

rdf:langString Bryn Mawr College Deanery

rdf:langString The Bryn Mawr College Deanery

rdf:langString The Bryn Mawr College Deanery

rdf:langString spring 1968

rdf:langString United States

rdf:langString Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

rdf:langString Archer & Allen

rdf:langString ; 1894–1896; 1908–1909

rdf:langString demolished

rdf:langString The Bryn Mawr College Deanery was the campus residence of the first Dean and second President of Bryn Mawr College, Martha Carey Thomas, who maintained a home there from 1885 to 1933. Under the direction of Thomas, the Deanery was greatly enlarged and lavishly decorated for entertaining the college's important guests, students, and alumnae, as well as Thomas’ own immediate family and friends.From its origins as a modest five room Victorian cottage, the Deanery grew into a sprawling forty-six room mansion which included design features from several notable 19th and 20th century artists. The interior was elaborately decorated with the assistance of the American artist Lockwood de Forest and Louis Comfort Tiffany, de Forest's partner in the design firm Tiffany & de Forest, supplied a number of light fixtures of Tiffany glass. De Forest's design of the Deanery's so-called 'Blue Room' is particularly important as it is often considered one of the best American examples of an Aesthetic Movement interior, alongside the Peacock Room by James Abbott McNeill Whistler. In addition, John Charles Olmsted, of the Olmsted Brothers landscape design firm, designed a garden adjacent to the Deanery, which also contained imported works of art from Syria, China, and Italy. The Deanery's beauty and rich history established the Deanery as a cherished space on campus and an icon of Bryn Mawr College. From 1933 until 1968, the Deanery served as the Alumnae House for Bryn Mawr College. The building was demolished in the spring of 1968 to make space for the construction of Canaday Library, which stands on the site today. At the time of its demolition, many of the Deanery's furnishings were re-located to Wyndham, an 18th-century farmhouse (with several later additions) which became the college's new Alumnae House.