The Council of Independent Colleges: Historic Campus Architecture Project

Westlands

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Institution Name: Sarah Lawrence College
Original/Historic Place Name: Westlands
Location on Campus: Administration Building
Date(s) of Construction:

1917	original construction Bates & How

Designer: Bates and How
Type of Place: Individual building
Style: Other (Glossary)
Significance: architecture, landscape
Narrative: see below
References: see below

Materials:

Foundation: fieldstone

Walls: brick

Roof: slate

Function:

ca. 1917	private residence (of college's founders)
ca. 2004-present (2006)	administration

Narrative:
Westlands was built as the primary private residence of William and Sarah Lawrence by the New York architectural firm, Bates and How. Bates and How had been involved in numerous residential commissions in the historically designated district of Lawrence Park, and were natural choices to design a new baronial estate set on twelve and one half acres adjacent to the Lawrence's residential development and their town core, Bronxville. Planned in the style of English country homes with a plan that owes much to McKim, Mead & White, the house was the centerpiece of an ensemble that included stables, gazebos, and cottages. In 1926, it became the center of the newly endowed Sarah Lawrence College. The original buildings built for the college by William A. Bates reflect the neo-Tudor style of Westlands. It has been steadily altered over time.

References:

Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.