Housing at Bennington is more "home" than "dorm" (Part 4)
September 01 2007
In this fourth and final installment of our series on housing at Bennington, we look at Welling Town House, the College's off-campus co-op house. Be sure to read Part One for the essentials of what it’s like to live in a Bennington house; Part Two for descriptions of the quirks and perks of each house, along with fun community events that various houses organize; and Part Three for the lowdown on the roommate experience, loud houses, quiet houses, and everything in between.
Ethan Knechel ’08 estimates that, walking, it takes “seventeen minutes to get from the front door of the Town House to the sculpture studio. In my car, four and a half minutes. On my bike... that depends on how badly you want to get to school. I think it’s been done in four and a half minutes.”
The Welling Town House, a big blue house with a sprawling yard in North Bennington, is the College’s only off-campus student house. For its residents, the walk (or bike ride, or car trip) is worth it: The house is a co-op, where students share responsibilities for cooking and cleaning, planning and purchasing. Although the on-campus Dining Hall serves a variety of options at every meal, Town House residents enjoy additional opportunities to buy specialty ingredients and experiment with different cuisines. Their lunch-only meal plan allows them to grab a meal at the Dining Hall between classes, with the remainder of their meal plan funds going toward the food and supplies budget at the co-op.
“There are no rules, but there are tendencies,” Ethan says. “Most of the time our food is vegetarian or vegan and mostly organic. Our food changes pretty wildly depending on what the dietary needs of the people in the house are. Right now there’s a soy allergy, a wheat allergy, about half the house is vegetarian, a bunch of people hate bell peppers, so on and so forth. Most cooks tend to cook only one meal for the entire house so everyone is on the same restrictions. But we’ve also had burgers and steaks; we’ve gone out for Chinese food in the past, for pizza.”
“Most of the time our food is vegetarian or vegan and mostly organic."
The Town House also has a garden in the backyard, where students harvest herbs and vegetables. “It’s difficult,” Ethan says, “because most of us are gone for most of the harvesting season”—but they still manage to enjoy some of the fruits of their labor: “We have a bunch of potatoes. Last year we had about four gallons of chili peppers. We have tons of tomatoes; we have greens; right now we’ve got a bumper crop of mint and sage. I think it’s really more for the act of gardening, that act of playing in the dirt, than the actual food, but it’s a good thing to do.”
Looming over the greens, you'll also find a salvaged streetlamp adding whimsy to the garden—and highlighting the yard's role as an occasional exhibition space for art. Every summer, the Town House joins its neighbors as hosts of the North Bennington Sculpture Park. "It’s one of the ways the College helps support the local arts community," says Sam Rich '07, a coordinator in the Student Life office, "and Town House residents get to enjoy the work until it’s taken down in October."
The living room is filled with couches, student work, and plants, and is flooded with light from the huge windows. It is both a hang-out space and a performance space.
Even with the focus on community living, residents can find space to be alone when they need it: In addition to beautiful bedrooms, the Town House has “many nooks, with varying degrees of secrecy,” Ethan says. But the common spaces are definitely a draw. The living room is filled with couches, student work, and plants, and is flooded with light from the huge windows. It is both a hang-out space and a performance space. Lee Johnson ’07 “played one of his senior concerts at the house, and the whole house came together," Ethan says. "People hung up some artwork, cleared out the common room, had a fire in the backyard. And we had an incredible free jazz night; the music was amazing and everyone who came was really into hearing music.”
While no first-year students live in the house—the one requirement for application is having lived on campus for at least two terms—they are definitely welcome as dinner guests. In the living room, a large board designates the weekly schedule: which two students will cook and clean each night, who wants a plate saved for them, and what guests will be joining house members for dinner. On Friday nights, there are often as many as fifteen guests, and most nights of the week see at least one on-campus friend piling into the living room along with all the house members to eat, talk, and spend time together.
“We’ve said at many meetings that the Town House ends up being a lot like a family.”
And first-years interested in a co-op environment are welcome to apply when they become sophomores. “We’ve said at many house meetings that the Town House ends up being a lot like a family,” Ethan says. “When you live with people that closely, and for that amount of time, and through the stresses that being a student exerts on you, you quickly become very close.
“I can tell you a lot about the Welling Town House,” he continues, “but what I’m really telling you about is the tendencies of fourteen individuals. The house evolves as people come and go." In that sense, though its format and location may set it apart, Welling Town House has a lot in common with on-campus houses. With roughly 30 people to a house, the personality of each community is shaped by the people who live in it. Small wonder, then, that you'll never hear Bennington students refer to their houses as "dorms." It's not just about architecture—it's the feeling of being at home.
More housing stories:
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