Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey

Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey


Image by flickr4jazz
Woodrow Wilson Hall, formerly known as the Shadow Lawn mansion, was built in 1929 at a cost of .5 million as the private residence of former F.W. Woolworth Co. president Hubert Templeton Parson and his wife Maysie. Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer and his assistant Julian Abele, the first African-American professional architect, designed the mansion in the neoclassical French tradition. The construction incorporates limestone quarried in Bedford, Indiana (also used in the Empire State Building), steel, concrete, and 50 varieties of Italian marble.

Wilson Hall
The mansion stands upon the precise site of the original Shadow Lawn, which was destroyed by fire in 1927, soon after million had been spent on its refurbishing. That former colonial frame structure contained 52 rooms and was built in 1903 for John A. McCall, former president of the New York Life Insurance Co.

It was later purchased by Joseph B. Greenhut, the head of Siegel, Cooper Co., a New York department store. Greenhut loaned the mansion to President Woodrow Wilson during the campaign of 1916 as the presidential summer home. Thereafter it was known as the Summer White House.

The current mansion fell under municipal ownership in the Depression, and later served as the site of a private girls’ school until the University (then known as Monmouth College) acquired the property in 1956.

The mansion underwent extensive restoration in the 1980s, beginning in 1984 as part of Monmouth’s 50th anniversary. Funding for the 0,000 project came from the McMurray-Bennett Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the State of New Jersey, and private contributions.

In 1978, along with the University’s Guggenheim Memorial Library, Wilson Hall was entered in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1985, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated it a National Historic Landmark.

The building encompasses some 130 rooms on three main floors, plus rooftop and lower-level rooms. In the main portion, there are 96 rooms, which include what once were 17 master suites and 19 baths. Each of the baths was decorated and furnished in a different period and had gold-plated or silver-plated fixtures.

Covering the parquet floors were 60,000 square feet of carpeting and 146 rugs specially designed and loomed in Europe and Asia. It took four years to complete the order. A rug woven in the Canary Islands and measuring 24 feet by 93 feet covered the main floor of the Great Hall, also known as Haslam Slocum Hall.

Wilson Hall has been described in newspapers throughout the world, is featured in many books on architecture and art, and has been used as backdrop for innumerable print ads and television commercials. It also served as the setting for the 1982 film version of Annie.

Woodrow Wilson Hall is the administrative center of the University, though classes are still held in the building.

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