Wanted: New Use for Rustic Cottage

3/24/08

For more than 100 years, Rustic Cottage has housed many different departments and services on the Berea College Campus, all of which have taken their cumulative toll on this simple wooden structure. Now, due to an unstable foundation, coupled with a wooden structure that has become unsafe, the building has outlived its usefulness as a College facility and needs to be removed from  its present location.

Rustic Cottage was built in 1901 on the site where the Emery Building currently stands. In 1923, it was moved to its present site to make way for construction of the “Women’s Industrial Building” (Emery). Throughout its century of service in both locations, Rustic Cottage has housed College Administration, Model School headquarters, Foundation School Administration, College Doctors office, College Dentists office, College Post Office, classrooms, Admissions, clothes pressing shop, offices for the  Wallpaper and the Pinnacle, Upward Bound, faculty offices, Council of the Southern Mountains, Financial Aid, Institutional Research, Alumni Association, Public Relations, and People Services. To honor its service to the College, items from the building, including the rustic porch railing, will be retained, some of which will be placed in the College’s Artifacts Collection.

As part of the long range planning process of the Campus Master Landscape plan, the demolition of the old heat plant and utilities building and the removal of Rustic Cottage provide an opportunity for reclaiming a ravine as additional green space on campus. The new green space also provides an opportunity to honor the memory of John G. Fee, Berea’s founder, by establishing the Glade as a place featuring quotations from Fee and other early founders with the college motto and the two Great Commandments that can educate and inspire those walking through to pause, reflective,  and re-consider the founding phrases (e.g., love over hate, human dignity with justice, peace with reconciliation and education as liberation) —eternal qualities to which Bereans aspire.  Construction of the new Fee Glade is scheduled to begin this spring.

The College investigated the possibility of having the structure moved intact to an alternate location, but  it was not feasible or cost-effective, due to its instability, the size of the building, and the number of mature trees on campus that also would have to be cut down to clear a path large enough for its removal. Rather than simply razing the building and sending the debris to a landfill, the College hopes that by May 1, an organization or individuals can remove the building (except the posts and railings of the porch and balcony, which the College is going to retain) and reuse the materials of it elsewhere for a purpose consistent with Berea’s College’s mission and its commitment to sustainability. Both organizations and  individuals are invited to submit proposals to the College through close-of-business April 4, 2008, to Steve Karcher, Vice President for Business and Administration, Berea College, CPO Box 2211, Berea, KY 40404. Telephone (859) 985-3131. Proposals should include information about how the structure will be dismantled and removed by the May 1 deadline; how safety concerns will be addressed—both for those removing the building and campus personnel and facilities, including protecting the tree entwined with the front porch; and how and where the materials will be used.  If no suitable proposals are submitted, the structure will be razed and usable materials recycled.