History of Gerald Avenue Residence
Dr. Nels J. Lennes, Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics, launched the construction of his new home at 1325 Gerald Avenue in the University District in 1928. Construction of this sixteen-room house took four years and cost $100,000, a large sum in the Depression years. Dr. Lennes paid for the house with the royalties from the sale of his arithmetic and algebra textbooks.
The house features an Italian Renaissance style, with the rock for the house reportedly gathered from McNamara's Landing on the Blackfoot River near Potomac. Some particularly noteworthy features of the house include the library, with its capacity for 20,000 volumes; the extensive and decoratively carved paneling of Philippine mahogany; and the Holland tiles still in place in two of the six baths.
After Dr. Lennes' death, his family sold the house in 1954 to Dr. Stephen N. Preston, who described the house as probably the "finest built" residence in the city. He found it "architecturally perfect in every detail." Dr. Preston owned the house for only a couple of years and then sold it to the University. From 1955 to 1960, it served as the Law House, a home for 20–30 unmarried law students. The Law House closed its doors at the end of fall quarter 1960 because the 15 students living there found the expense too great to sustain the facility.
On March 3, 1961, the University sold the residence to the Newman Club. Terms of the sale included a stipulation that, if sold, the house had to go to a university-affiliated group. At one time, the Newman Club planned to house 30 male Catholic students there. During the decade of the 1960s, the Newman House provided a wonderful home for dozens of university students.
In 1974, the University purchased the house as the official residence of the President of the University. Remarkably preserved, the Lennes House has served the University and the University District well.
