Chancellor's House

Chancellor’s House plays host to SU leaders, events over 100 years

Former Chancellor Kenneth “Buzz” Shaw remembers looking out the windows of his house seeing the snow and Syracuse skyline. Looking back, he calls it beautiful.

At the time, Shaw was looking out of his home, the Chancellor’s House, which he described as opulent and lived in throughout his tenure as Syracuse University chancellor from 1991–2004.

The 113-year-old house at 300 Comstock Ave., which was officially acquired by the university 100 years ago in January 1915, has housed nine SU chancellors as well as many memories.

“I know what you’re going to ask me — and no, I’m not as old as the Chancellor’s House,” Shaw said with a laugh.

The house itself was designed by architect Albert Brockway and built from 1901–02 by the original owner William Nottingham, according to the SU Archives website. The Chancellor’s House measures approximately 246 square feet by 370 square feet with 20 rooms. The house is two and a half stories high and sits on almost two acres of land. The main floor is used mainly for entertaining purposes and the private family quarters are located upstairs, said Mary O’Brien, reference archivist for SU Archives and Records Management.



The first SU Chancellor’s House was located at 604 University Ave., and then-Chancellor James Day lived there from 1902–15, according to the SU Archives website.

In 1915, Day traded residences with Nottingham and his wife, making the house at 300 Comstock Ave. the new official residence of the SU chancellor. The school was able to acquire the house due to a large monetary donation by John Archbold, who was head of the Board of Trustees at the time, O’Brien said.

Each chancellor since then has lived in the house and decorated it according to his or her own individual taste, O’Brien said.

“It was a very nice and livable house,” Shaw said. “Of course, it required work, but that was understandable with its age.” Shaw’s children and grandchildren often visited him and his wife at the Chancellor’s House during the holidays when Shaw was chancellor of SU, he added.

When Chancellor Kent Syverud moved in to the house last March, he picked some things out of the archives to hang on the walls as decorations, O’Brien said. The house also needed several upgrades.

Necessary structural, safety and environmental work along with deferred maintenance were completed for the house prior to and during part of the spring 2014 semester, said Kevin Quinn, SU’s senior vice president for public affairs.

The maintenance, repair and refurbishment work included environmental testing, window and lighting repairs and fixing the electrical system, the heating and cooling systems and the fire alarm system, Quinn said.

While some of the repairs were being made, Syverud and his wife, Ruth Chen, lived in the Brewster/Boland/Brockway residence hall complex. They moved into the house after the repairs were finished, Quinn said.

“Chancellor Syverud and Dr. Chen view the house as belonging to the full university community, although they happen to live there,” Quinn said. “During the past 10 months, they have opened the house to the full campus community and have hosted thousands of students, faculty, staff and alumni there.”

Syverud created the One University initiative so that every member of SU’s faculty and staff — more than 4,300 people — will be invited to attend an event at the Chancellor’s House during the 2014–2015 academic year, Quinn said.

O’Brien estimated that about 50–100 people could visit the Chancellor’s House for an event at one time because the house was “made for entertaining.” She described the character of the building as “formal and elegant, but also home-like.”

Shaw and his wife revisited and stayed at the Chancellor’s House for a few nights during Syverud’s inauguration. He said the stay was very relaxed and he noticed that Syverud and his wife had made some repairs.

Said Shaw, remembering his own stay in the house: “After a while, it starts to feel like your own.”





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