At 100 years-plus, UVa's Garrett Hall gets new life

Garrett Hall has come back up in the world.

It started life early in the last century as part of a renowned architectural firm’s massive vision for university expansion, but later wound up as shabby office space. Now, the University of Virginia building has been retooled to house the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

“This is the first sort of permanent home for the [school],” said Brian Hogg, senior historic preservation planner.

When Garrett Hall was built in 1909, it replaced an older dining hall on Carr’s Hill, UVa history officer Alexander “Sandy” Gilliam said. It was part of an effort by UVa then-President Edwin A. Alderman to get students back on Grounds and bolster a feeling of community, Hogg said.

Known as The Commons, it featured a great hall with paneling and a stucco ceiling, and students were served by waiters. The trick, an uncle of Gilliam’s wrote in a letter home, was to make friends with your waiter, which could lead to extra portions.

By the time Gilliam got there, Garrett Hall was one of two UVa dining halls, and the preferred one. Incoming freshmen ate in a World War II surplus building, which they nicknamed Ptomaine Tavern.

“I’m probably one of the few people left around here who not only remember it from the time it was a dining hall, but actually ate there,” Gilliam said.

The food wasn’t bad, Gilliam said, but most of his friends opted to pledge a fraternity their sophomore year.

When Newcomb Hall opened in the late 1950s, Garrett ceased to be a cafeteria and was converted into office space. The foyer was filled in, offices were added upstairs and large rooms were cut up and their ceilings lowered.

Workers dug out an annex that served as the university’s first computer center, Gilliam said.

“It was constructed for these huge IBM mainframe computers, so it didn’t need natural light,” said Jody Lahendro, historic preservation architect for UVa, who described the space as “gloomy, dark and foreboding.”

Financial offices followed by administrative offices filled the space in the hall proper until Monroe Hall was recently renovated, when the administrators were shifted there. That allowed officials to fix up Garrett for the Batten School in a $12.2 million renovation. The work was funded from Frank Batten’s $100 million gift that founded the school and from state maintenance reserve money.

“It was very, very shabby,” said Lahendro.

Leakage in the north wall had led to plaster damage, and the wall was being pressed in by the hillside. Renovations in the 1950s and 1980s had removed much of the building’s historic character, Hogg said.

The new setup, at more than 24,000 square feet, is designed to be an office building, but with many of the structure’s original features restored. The work also allowed for new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. The hall got a new audio-video system, as well.

Hidden concrete buttresses reinforce the wall.

The annex roof, which Lahendro described as previously being a “wasteland,” was converted to a green roof, watered with rainwater collected in a cistern. There are seating areas there now, as well. Skylights bring natural light into the annex.

Awnings, reminiscent of those on the building when it opened in the first decade of the 20th century, were added.

There aren’t any designated classrooms in the building, which is designed more as a headquarters for the school than an instruction space, but there are several rooms that can be converted for instruction, officials said.

“Being able to recreate the building’s lobby and then re-establish the volume of the great room was really a nice thing and it creates some pretty special spaces for the school,” Hogg said.