Saint James School - Property Description - Main House
 

Main House was a fairly large home that had been extensively remodeled to make it appropriate for a boarding school.  The front of the house faced Hudson Street and had a small, covered porch.  The main school entrance was a road that came from Hudson Street past Main House on the left and continued around and up the hill to the left of 1811 House to Worthington Road.  Behind Main House was a large, circular parking area with walkways leading to the school building, athletic field and a cottage used to house teachers.  The back of Main House had three entrances and a fire escape for the second and third floors.  One entrance led directly to the kitchen and another to the cafeteria.  The third was the student’s entrance which opened to a long, wide hallway.

 From the student’s entrance on the first floor at the back of the house was a long, wide hall with back stairs on the left leading to the second floor.  This stairway was used by the students.  The TV room was on the right as was an infirmary that had three beds and a bathroom.  Further down the hall on the left were the pay phone and the entrance to the cafeteria where the food line began.  A little further down the hall to the left was the exit from the cafeteria.  Straight ahead was the front entrance to Main House, (which was never used).  On the right was the teacher’s stairway to the second floor, (forbidden to students), and a small room with a table that was used for meetings and, on Saturday, where Francis dispensed allowances from the student accounts.  (A fellow student once told me Francis was so serious and solemn when he consulted his ledger and handed out the allowances to each of the students that he reminded him of the Secretary to the Treasury dispensing the country’s money.)

From the back of Main House at the top of the back stairway on the second floor and to the left, was the housemother’s room, with a private bathroom.  There was a large bathroom for the students, directly across the hall to the right.  The rest of the floor had several student rooms on the left, with a banister opening to a stairway to the first floor on the right.  This stairway was used by teachers only.  At the end of the hallway we had a room that housed our pool table and next to it, another student room and a stairway going up to the third floor.  The poolroom had a window that opened on to the roof of the front porch.  Sometimes at night students would climb out this window to secretly smoke cigarettes on the roof of the front porch.  The students who wanted to sneak out at night for a hamburger at the local diner, would have to pass the housemother’s room, down the back stairs and exit through the back door, (which was never locked), and return the same way but in reverse order.

 At first, the third floor of Main House was all student rooms.  But during the summer of 1956, the third floor was renovated and turned into a dormitory with rows of bunk beds lined up like an army barracks and a large bathroom.  One room had been left to house the floor monitor.  At the top of the stairs, student dressers were located at the end of the bunk beds and around the walls to the left.  The bathroom was around the banister and to the right.  (Some students would climb out the windows on the third floor at night to smoke.  In order to do this, they had to climb up onto the dormers and balance where the dormers connected to the steep roof.)  It was easier to sneak out at night from this floor as all that was necessary was to go down the fire escape at the back of the building.

 Main House also had a basement that was used as a large pantry and had a walk in freezer for meat and such.  The basement also housed an electric generator that could supply electricity to the entire school in the event of a blackout.  The basement was accessed through a door in the corner of the first floor kitchen and a narrow stairway.  There was also a double bulkhead door entrance outside by the road.

 Front

back

back & side & dining room

 Front

rear fire escare

Front & side driveway

dining room exterior

Pine tree behind main house

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