Garner President’s House

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Shall we compare you to a modern manse?
Your recent renovation is on view,
No hint of past encumbrance at first glance,
Nor echoes of the problems that we knew.

We counted on our “guys” to keep us sane,
To monitor the heat and water flow.
Is winter’s frost inside a window pane
Call Jeff or Jim, Dennis or Johnny O!

This house is “home” to family and friends,
Perhaps to Doctor King’s benev’lent ghost.
Its hospitality a message sends.
It is the College’s e’er-present host.

How long your walls will stand no one can tell.
Forever linked in hist’ry to Cornell.

– Written by Katrina Garner on the dedication of the Garner President’s House, October 24, 2013

What is today the President’s House was constructed in 1850 by Mount Vernon banker William Hamilton, because he enjoyed the view.¹ The house was referred to as Hamilton’s folly because it was not only isolated but difficult to heat due to the wind on the hill.² In 1861, after his daughters Maggie and Alice had reached their teen years, Mr. Hamilton sold the house to a farmer named Peter McDowell and moved his family to Iowa City.³ Both of Hamilton’s daughters had attended the preparatory school at the college, and as such, the building was a part of the college’s early history.

Around 1864, President William Fletcher King was looking for a place to call home for himself and his new wife. While they had purchased a house down the hill from the college, the old Hamilton house had caught King’s eye, and in a move made hasty by another bidder, King exchanged his house and land for the old Hamilton house, in addition to paying McDowell a hefty $3,000, which King borrowed from friends and family.⁴ Although it took King nearly 15 years to pay back the loan, he knew it was worth it, as he wanted the house to remain with the college.⁵ After King’s retirement, he gave the house to Cornell, with the stipulation that it be used for the housing of college presidents, and that he be allowed to live there until his death.⁶ Since then, the “White House” has played host to almost every college president since 1864 and undergone several renovations.⁷

The original house was 4,384 square feet, with a tower that immediately catches the eye when approaching the house.⁸ Most 1850 architecture at the time did not use towers like the one gracing the president’s house. It is possibly part of an addition that occurred in 1855 and is quite likely the work of Cass Chapman, the architect who designed King Chapel and Bowman-Carter Hall, as the structure of the tower is very similar to those buildings’ towers.⁹ As Hamilton was fond of chess, the tower was mostly likely built to be Hamilton’s game room owing to the excellent views of the countryside and the way the breeze would cool the tower during the hot summer months.¹⁰

In 1922, President Charles Wesley Flint (1915-1922) added screened porches on the west side, enclosed a summer kitchen to be all-season, created a private dining room from the former kitchen, and added a bathroom to the guest room to make hosting easier.¹¹ Under the Burgstahlers’ presidency (1927-39 ), the third floor was renovated to create three more bedrooms, a bathroom, luggage room, and a hallway.¹² The rooms were home to six girls who would receive boarding and a college education in exchange for an hour of housework a day.¹³ In the early 1940s, Mrs. Magee, wife of President John B. Magee, enclosed the front porch to enlarge the living room and moved the location of the front door to where it sits today.¹⁴ The Cole presidency (1943-1960) completely re-did the kitchen, added windows overlooking the campus from the dining room, replaced the crystal chandelier in the dining room, and planted a rose garden.¹⁵ Arrola B. Cole famously said that she would wait for faculty and staff to have a salary raise before she would take money to redo the house, which was in desperate need of repair, and the Board of Trustees was able to make the necessary salary adjustments in time for Mrs. Cole to have her new kitchen.¹⁶

The most recent set of renovations, completed in 2012, added an additional 4,853 square feet to the house.¹⁷ These renovations began during the tenure of President Emeritus Les and First Lady Katrina Garner (1994 to 2004), and were made possible by the leadership and generosity of the Board of Trustees. Lead donors for the project were John McGrane ’73 and Martha (Marty) Benson McGrane ’73. The renovations addressed a long-standing issue with the plumbing and pipes freezing during the winter, allowed the house to be made ADA accessible, created space for college catering, and helped with the overall flow of space within the house.¹⁸ Along with the addition of the Garden Room and catering space, the renovations also reinforced the original structure, adding in steel supports and re-building the floor of the iconic tower.¹⁹ During construction, crews demolished 2,389 square feet of the existing house before making the additions. The house now stands at 6,848 square feet, allowing Jonathan Brand, the current president, and his wife, Rachelle LaBarge, to continue the tradition of entertaining students, faculty, and distinguished guests to the campus in what is truly a campus landmark.²⁰

The Legend of the Tower

According to several news stories on the “White House,” as well as a history of the house written by Arrola B. Cole, the ninth first lady of the college, the tower was William Hamilton’s way of allowing his youngest daughter, Alice, to see the countryside.²¹ Alice was crippled, and therefore could not see the countryside. This story has circulated through college history as fact, retold through the years. However, there is no historical evidence of Alice’s disability, just a record of her having attended the Cornell high school from 1856-1861.²² The starting point for this legend is thought to be the novel College in Crinoline written by Marjorie Medary, a graduate of the class of 1912 who knew both Hamilton girls.²³

Cornell’s Fairytale Story

Margaret Hamilton, the oldest of William Hamilton’s daughters, attended Cornell’s primary school between 1858 and 1860.²⁴ At that time, she moved with her father and the rest of her family to Iowa City, and then on to San Francisco, where her father quickly made a fortune in banking.²⁵ In 1872, at the age of 23, she married the son of a Boston capitalist, who managed to squander her fortune, leaving her without a penny after little more than a month of marriage.²⁶ This was not the most auspicious start for a young woman of high society, and Margaret went back to San Francisco to be with her mother and younger sister to figure out what to do next.

In 1881, while visiting a railroad tycoon in San Francisco, Margaret met Sir Sydney Waterlow, the former Lord Mayor of London and a baronet.²⁷ It was love at first sight. Unfortunately, Sir Sydney had to return to England soon after their meeting.²⁸ Some planning had to be done to reunite the two, as Margaret – a divorced, fortune-less woman – was not in a position to be courted by an English nobleman without risking social suicide, but in less than six months she was sailing to London with a dear family friend, who planned on playing matchmaker.²⁹

On March 28, 1882, at the age of 32, Margaret and Sir Sydney were wed at the the British Embassy in Paris.³⁰ She became Lady Waterlow, wife to one of the richest and most respected men in England.³¹ She was able to travel around the world, stopping by her home in Mount Vernon at least once to regale the Kings with her stories of old times, and even had a tea rose named for her in Japan.³² When she died in 1931, the little girl who had owned the first piano in Mount Vernon, Iowa,³³ had become renowned for her hospitality and lived among the nobility of England.³⁴

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Related Sources:

1. Arrola B. Cole, “The White House (with corrections made by Charles Milhauser),” November 21, 1960, College Archives. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. Ibid. ↩︎
6. Charles Milhauser, “The President’s House,” College Archives. ↩︎
7. “The Garner President’s House,” College Archives. ↩︎
8. Ibid. ↩︎
9. Milhauser, “The President’s House.” ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎
11. “The Garner President’s House”; Milhauser, “The President’s House.” ↩︎
12. Ibid. ↩︎
13. Cole, “The White House (with corrections made by Charles Milhauser).” ↩︎
14. Milhauser, “The President’s House.” ↩︎
15. Ibid. ↩︎
16. Cole, “The White House (with corrections made by Charles Milhauser).” ↩︎
17. “The Garner President’s House.” ↩︎
18. Jonathan Brand, “Garner President’s House History-re-write,” email to site curators, July 18, 2016. ↩︎
19. Ibid. ↩︎
20. “The Garner President’s House.” ↩︎
21. Naomi Doebel, “Modern Decor Mates with Civil War Architecture In Christ-Janer House,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 2, 1961, College Archives. ↩︎
22. Cole, “The White House (with corrections made by Charles Milhauser).” ↩︎
23. Ibid. ↩︎
24. Charles Milhauser, “From the Hilltop to the high life.” Cornell Report, Spring 2003, College Archives. ↩︎
25. Ibid. ↩︎
26. Ibid. ↩︎
27. Ibid. ↩︎
28. Ibid. ↩︎
29. Ibid. ↩︎
30. Milhauser, “From the Hilltop to the high life.” ↩︎
31. Ibid. ↩︎
32. Ibid. ↩︎
33. Doebel, “Modern Decor Mates with Civil War Architecture In Christ-Janer House.” ↩︎
34. Milhauser, “From the Hilltop to the high life.” ↩︎

Cite this Page:

Brad Kane ’18 and Hannah Robertson ’18, “Garner President’s House,” Mount Vernon Iowa History Tours.