Photo courtesy of Deron Chang/The Choate News
On Monday, July 22, at around 5:30 p.m., lightning struck the roof of the south end of Hill House, directly above the apartment of former Hill House adviser Dr. Christopher Hogue. The strike ignited a fire that caused major damage to the Hill House complex.
The Wallingford Fire Department arrived on the scene shortly after the alarm went off at around 6:20 p.m., and with the combined effort of Wallingford, Meriden, Middletown, and North Haven Fire Departments, the fire was contained by TK time, before more extensive damage could occur. Although the fire was successfully extinguished, water from the storm, the firetrucks, the sprinkler system, and a broken pipeline damaged the Hill House attic, basement, and parts of the main floor, including the School’s college counseling offices.
Students living in Hill House while attending Choate Summer Programs had moved out of the building the week before, so no student possessions were damaged.
No permanent damage was inflicted on West Wing and Library. However, both buildings lost power and incurred smoke damage. Fourteen girls and a few summer program interns were living in the affected dorms, and they were relocated to Homestead for the rest of the program.
The next day, because the air quality of the affected dorms was deemed unsafe by the fire department, students and staff were allowed to return to their dorm rooms for a short period of time to pack up and move out before the dorms closed for repair.
“I was allowed to go back in and get my car keys, and a couple of other things. I think I grabbed a hard drive,” said Dr. Hogue. “After that, I wasn’t allowed to go back in. I still haven’t gone back in.”
The afternoon after the fire, a mass email was sent to all members of the Choate community, informing them of the events of the previous night. The extent of the damage was still being assessed, and no changes to plans for housing during the approaching academic year had yet been formalized.
Fortunately, Choate Summer Programs were minimally affected, with the dining hall and SAC reopening on the third day after the storm. “We did not have to relocate any classroom space or anything like that,” said Ms. Eera Sharma, Director of Summer Programs. “We didn’t have to relocate anything for our final summer event in the Hill House dining hall.”
Knowing that the fire would affect the housing of Hill House students during the academic year, Director of Residential Life Mr. Will Morris and Dean of Students Mr. Michael Velez met the night of the fire to discuss long-term and short-term housing options for the displaced students and staff. “Part of the boarding life at Choate is that we try to fill every room we can, so we don’t have a whole lot of flexibility, especially with 34 displaced kids,” said Dr. Hogue, who helped the deans devise a new housing scheme.
Choate considered creating temporary dorms to remedy housing shortages after hearing about similar strategies from neighboring institutions, such as the Loomis Chaffee School. Although this option was deeply explored, it was ultimately rejected due to time and size constraints. “It turns out that it’s very difficult to create a modular residence that has student rooms and faculty apartments for appropriate supervision and that has all of the facilities and hookup and everything,” said Mr. Morris.
The administration also considered repurposing and redesigning other buildings on campus, such as the old SAC, but found that they were unable to do so in the six weeks between the fire and the start of the fall term. Additionally, as a short-term solution, the School inquired with day-student families about the possibility of hosting boarding students.
Within the first week, it became apparent that the damage done to Hill House would likely keep the space closed for some two years. Quickly, the administration began to look for more permanent solutions to the sudden housing crisis. The ultimate solution proved something of a dormitory chess game: the students who were set to live in the all-gender house were moved to Combination House, opening up 14 spaces in Edsall House. Eight new triples were created by converting doubles into triples in Tenney, Clinton Knight, and Spencer. Pierce, previously a sixth-form girls’ dorm, now houses five fifth-form boys. A triple was created in the KEC in a room that had been reserved for campus guests. Mr. Stephen and Mrs. Susan Farrell, two longtime faculty members, opened two bedrooms in David House, their faculty residence. Pratt House, in the floors above the Health Center, now houses ten sophomore boys and Mr. Dan Proulx, another former Hill House adviser. All four sixth-formers who were set to prefect in Hill retained their prefectship in Pratt. The School notified the displaced students of preliminary rooming arrangements by August 24.
The housing arrangements were not easy decisions to make, but the School made sure that all of the students would be living in places that matched Choate’s standards of residential life. “None of the spaces that we wound up bringing online represented a compromise in terms of student safety and livability,” said Mr. Morris.
Mr. Ian Wollman and Ms. Angela Weston, who were both planning to live in Hill House for the ’19-’20 school year, are now living in off-campus housing and advising in Bernhard House and West Wing, respectively. Dr. Hogue now lives on the first floor of Richardson House. Many of the students in Hill House were originally set to live in singles, so Hill House advisers and the deans of the Class of 2021 formed new pairs of roommates.
The fire also displaced the college counseling department. After looking at multiple options, Head of School Dr. Alex Curtis and the college counseling team decided to move the college counseling office to Gables House, which is large enough to fit all the members of the department and could be fully prepared in the few weeks before the start of the school year. Although the new location moves the department away from the Dean’s Office, it is much closer to Lanphier Center and student dorms, keeping it amid the frenzy of campus life.
With the school year now firmly underway, most of the relocated students and faculty members say that they have become content with their new living arrangements. “I’m actually very satisfied,” said Jayden Khuu ’21. “For me, having accessible food options has always been a priority. Now I live in the K.E.C., which also has pretty good food, and I spend most of my day out of my room anyway.”
Will Flamm ’21, who is currently living with Mr. and Mrs. Farrell, said, “I’m living with a great family that’s very kind to me and grants me independence and made an environment for me where I can study and get away from things.”
Whether by donating furniture or buying new technology, many members of the Choate community have helped these students and faculty members relocate. Khuu, for one, felt particular gratitude to his form dean, Ms. Dana Brown. “Just her being there gave me a lot of reassurance,” Khuu said. “I knew somebody was looking out for me.”
Ms. Marcia Landesman, Director of College Counseling, said it would have been impossible to have begun to recover from the fire without the Facilities Department and the school’s cleaning service, ABM, which together she called “incredibly helpful, supportive, and responsive during the relocation process.”
An instrumental part of campus for decades, Hill House has been a home for generations of students who have created lasting memories and friendships between its walls. “Hill meant a lot more to me than just a dorm,” said Wilson Wang ’19, a former prefect in Hill House who is now studying bioengineering at UC Berkeley. “It was truly a community and a family. I met some of my best friends there and cultivated great relationships with some of my co-prefects and prefectees.”
Hill House will be under construction for at least the next two years.
