When you return to your alma mater, you're at home.

Now that the Alumni House has been fully restored, that's never been truer.

In 1924, as the campus began its fourth decade, an ambitious fundraising campaign kicked off. The goal? Create a center for campus life which would serve as headquarters for the alumni and all their activities.

President Julius Foust and the college's board of directors challenged each alumna to give $60. By 1925, about half the needed funds were in hand. But in 1929, the stock market crashed. Still, fundraising continued. Rummage sales and egg money were part of the efforts. Alumni Secretary Clara Booth Byrd '13 traveled the state to raise money, corresponded constantly and helped see the project to fruition. “It was her baby,” recalls Evon Welch Dean '42C, co-chair of the House Committee who served for 44 years as assistant to the secretary — five years under Byrd. “She made it possible.”

By 1937, a “2 to 5” initiative was launched, encouraging everyone who'd not given to contribute $2-$5, so all would be a part of the endeavor.

The Alumni House was built and furnished for about $155,000, which included a Public Works Administration grant of $31,400. Every dollar received was used to its fullest. The design. The materials. Even the core skeleton of the building.

It's steel. That was forward-thinking. During the recent restoration, workers were able to weld a new steel staircase to that existing structure, helping stretch renovation funds.

The Alumni House now has new window treatments and upholstery. Refurbished lighting fixtures. Refinished floors. Handicap accessible bathrooms. A restored slate roof — all the slate in the north and south wings was reused. A fire sprinkler system. Waterproofing. New plumbing and electrical system. Four HVAC units which now take up the entire attic space — to get them in, they opened up the roof to drop them in. Most of this infrastructure is unseen, says Douglas Cato, construction project manager for the renovation, noting that the original builders likewise hid their steel behind homey wood. “They went to great lengths to make it a house.”

Alumni House has quite a history

• It is patterned after Homewood, a colonial-style home in Baltimore built by Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, for his only son.
• The Alumni House was built on the site of Old Guilford Hall, a wooden residence hall built in 1892. The hall stood beside President McIver's home.
• Today, many universities have an alumni building. But when the Alumni House was built, there were as few as six in the country.
• Student groups that have used the house in the past include staffs of the Pine Needles yearbook, Carolinian newspaper and Coraddi literary magazine.
• Students still have a space in the house, with the Student Ambassadors Office. It overlooks the Taylor Garden pond and plaza.
• The Alumni Association has had its offices here since 1937. Before, the association was in Foust (Administration) Building. The original Secretary's Office has been preserved on the first floor, but the association's headquarters, as well as the office of the vice chancellor for university advancement, is on the lower floor.
• The Pecky Cypress Room served as the chancellor’s office for nearly a decade. Chancellor Singletary moved in near the end of his tenure, and subsequently, Chancellor Ferguson stayed until Mossman Building was completed.
• Nearly 2,400 items from the house went into storage during the 2007-08 renovation. Aside from the bedroom furnishings, fewer than a dozen pieces, such as some planters from the 1970s, were not retained.
• Originally, the house had bedrooms on the central floor and third floor where alumni and university guests could stay when visiting campus. With this renovation, there are no more bedrooms in the Alumni House.