Image: The living room of one of the new houses.

Why housing at Bennington is more home than dorm (Part 2)

The things that Bennington students love about their houses are as varied as the students themselves. Housing is personal at Bennington—students live not in massive dorms, but in houses of about 30 people each, a mixture of single and double rooms, with kitchens and comfy common areas. Dwelling in these communities is the kind of experience that’s easier to show than describe, and House Stories offers a few thumbnail portraits of Bennington students, their rooms, their roommates, their houses—and how they made themselves at home.

Be sure to read Part One for the essentials of what it’s like to live in a Bennington house!

If you like quirks and perks…

…you’re likely to find them no matter what house you move into. Each type of house—whether the original colonial-style houses, the modern houses built in the 1970s, or the new houses constructed in 2001—has its own advantages and special features.

At the very end of Third Street, Rebecca Bass ’10 and Mary Dwan ’10 share a double in Paris-Borden, one of the new houses (featured in Architectural Record when they were first built). “The common rooms are beautiful,” Rebecca says. “The one on the third floor is great for watching storms coming.” Among other things, the new houses have elevators to take you swiftly from the first floor to the third floor.

They also have bright, airy kitchens, and they’re right across from the new Student Center, where you can buy cooking and baking ingredients at the convenience store inside. (Every student on campus has a meal plan with three meals a day, but house kitchens come in handy for late-night cooking, leisurely house dinners, Coffee Hour fare, and birthday cakes.)

The Barnes houses (dubbed the “70s houses” by students, in honor of their first decade of occupancy) are closest to the tennis courts and soccer field, and feature central skylights, apartment suites upstairs, and common rooms that greet you as soon as you walk in the door. Another perk: laundry rooms on the bottom floor (the new houses have washers and dryers as well).

If you live in an older house, you can still do your laundry in Commons, a two-minute walk away. And most would agree it’s a small trade-off for the parlor-style living rooms, secret nooks and crannies, and surplus of vintage charm found in the colonial houses. The colonial houses are also closest to Commons Lawn, where you can pull up an Adirondack chair and read, or start a pick-up game of football.

If you like fun community events…

Bingham’s most distinguishing feature—its porch and the accompanying porch swing—is the centerpiece of its annual Porch Party, just one of several events that individual houses plan and host for the whole campus. Some houses are known for particular parties—Fels holds Felstival; Canfield is responsible for the first party of each term; Woolley, where Sam Clement ’08 has lived since his first year, holds the Cinco de Mayo party.

Even when there’s no party in progress, “We have live music more often than not,” Clement says. “People in bands will usually say, ‘We have some friends coming and we’re going to play downstairs—is that OK?’ And everyone says ‘yeah’ or ‘no.’ It’s never been ‘no’ so far. Everybody here is really supportive.”

A Woolley resident since his first year, Sam can’t imagine living anywhere else. He remembers moving into the house as a freshman and thinking that “the House Chairs were amazing. They were really incredible. There were a lot of freshmen when I came in—a lot of people our age and new to the house. We grew real tight real fast because of that, I think.”

Three years later, Sam is now a House Chair himself. “I have a lot of say in what goes on, as a House Chair,” he says. “I feel like I know more what’s going on, and for a house I really care about and people I care a lot about, that was important for me—to know how people are doing, to make sure that the house is good and comfortable for everybody.”

Check in next week for Part Three, when we’ll give you the lowdown on the roommate experience, loud houses, quiet houses, and everything in between. The following week, in our fourth and final installment of this series, we’ll look at Welling Town House, Bennington’s co-op house—a haven for organic community living, where students share the cooking and enjoy a backyard herb-and-vegetable garden.

More housing stories:

• Housing Stories, Part 1: The Essentials
• Housing Stories, Part 2: Perks and Quirks, Fun Community Events
• Housing Stories, Part 3: The Roommate Experience, The Atmosphere
• Housing Stories, Part 4: Organic Living at the Co-Op House

More about life on campus:

• Living at Bennington
• Food at Bennington
• List of campus organizations
• Bodies in Motion: Athletics, fitness, and the great outdoors at Bennington
• Stealing Away: The secret (and not-so-secret) hideaways of the Bennington campus

Click here to read more stories about Bennington.