Fund for Bentley Hall Challenge Inspires Restoration of

In just over a year’s time, Allegheny College alumni and friends rallied together and rose to a challenge to ensure that Bentley Hall’s storied place in the College’s history will endure into its future.

Patricia Bush Tippie ’56 and Henry Tippie issued that challenge, presenting the College with a $7 million gift in 2017. The Tippies’ dollar-for-dollar match sparked a groundswell of generosity from others to complete the $14 million initiative.

“Trustees, alumni, faculty, students, staff and friends almost instantly stepped up to support Bentley,” Trustee Emerita Pat Tippie says. “It’s been wonderful to see how everyone responded.” All told, donors from more than 100 households supported the Bentley Hall restoration, including six who contributed $1 million or more.

The last major renovation of Bentley Hall took place nearly a century ago. The need for significant work was clear to Henry Tippie during a 2017 tour of the building with Cliff Willis, Allegheny’s director of major capital projects.

“If it hadn’t been for Cliff taking my husband on the tour, it wouldn’t have happened,” Pat Tippie says of the challenge gift.

The project has encompassed a complete interior and exterior renovation of Bentley — from its cornerstone to cupola. “We’ve tried very hard to bring back some of the feelings of what it was like when it was first built,” Willis says.

Project architect MacLachlan, Cornelius & Filoni, Inc. brought extensive experience with historic renovations to the design and planning. Bentley Hall marks the sixth major project on the Allegheny campus for lead contractor Massaro, Inc.

The College engaged a wide range of other experts to preserve elements from the building’s history, including Jonathan “Jed” Miller ’69. Miller has been deeply involved in researching the historic details of all aspects of the building, from construction features to original paint colors and wallpaper. He also designed many significant elements of the interior, including carpeting and casework.

Bentley is the most important building on campus — and we felt that it had to be restored for many generations to come.

Patricia Bush Tippie ’56

Trustee Emerita

On the outside, workers carefully removed layers of paint that hid damage. Exterior bricks were preserved or replaced if broken and then sealed to protect them. Even the new mortar incorporates a grapevine technique, with intricate wavy lines, that research suggests was part of Bentley’s history.

Willis also points with pride to the building’s new “six over six” windows that hearken back to an original feature of Bentley. The windows have six panes of glass on the upper sash and six on the lower. Each had to be custom made because “over 200 years, the building had shifted, and every window was a different size,” Willis says.

The project also has involved less apparent yet equally critical efforts to shore up the building’s structural integrity, Willis says. When careful examination revealed numerous voids in the foundation, crews injected grout to strengthen it. A new slate roof now tops Bentley, with nearly all of the supporting structure replaced as well. Hidden in the walls, steel beams now buttress the area near the new elevator on the building’s south side.

Renovations also added an accessible entrance on the west side and new electrical, plumbing and other mechanical systems. The College’s ethos of sustainability resounds throughout the project, which is being completed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Certification

standards. Among many other green features, 12 nearby geothermal wells extend 500 feet deep, feeding the building’s heating and cooling system.

The geothermal system was funded by Christine Scott Nelson ’73, an Allegheny trustee who chaired the Fund for Bentley Hall Challenge. “This is such a beautiful, iconic building — 200 years old,” she says, “and I can’t think of a better statement when we unveil Bentley after the renovations than to say that our oldest building, too, is part of Allegheny’s commitment to sustainability.”

The renovated Bentley is scheduled for occupancy in spring 2021, and it will continue to serve as the College’s central administrative hub. The third floor, which was shuttered to occupancy due to fire regulations in 1964, will reopen and feature two meeting rooms. Visitors to that level also will find the famed chalkboard — where scores of Alleghenians have written their names and messages — and intricately restored cornices that date to the mid-1800s when two literary societies were housed there.

It has been a “career highlight” to be involved in the restoration of Bentley Hall, Willis says, noting that he has a deep appreciation for history. To share his passion, he began leading tours of the building that quickly became popular staples of Reunion Weekend and other College events.

Willis says he has long admired the efforts of those who toiled to construct a building of Bentley’s scale some two centuries ago.

There are many people who have given really significant donations. My support has been kind of a gift of love.

Cliff Willis

Allegheny College Director of Major Capital Projects

“Think back to 1820 — to take on a task like this on what was then the frontier,” Willis says. “You look at the size of the timbers that are in that building, and you scratch your head thinking, ‘What a challenge to get those up there. They didn’t have cranes or anything like that.’”

Since Willis joined the College as an employee in 2008, he has looked forward to the day when Bentley would be renovated — so much so that he was the first person to make a gift to support the effort. Several years ago, he began designating annual contributions to the Bentley project in anticipation of its beginning.

“There are many people who have given really significant donations,” Willis says, thanking those donors for their generosity. “My support has been kind of a gift of love.”

Willis says that he hopes the renovation project honors the building’s history by preserving its legacy well into the College’s future. To that end, the fundraising earmarked $1 million to an endowment for ongoing maintenance. The Tippies established a similar fund when they supported the restoration of Cochran Hall to create the Patricia Bush Tippie Alumni Center in 2006. Those endowments provide a stable resource to address issues promptly, preventing them from being deferred and developing into even more significant problems, Henry Tippie explains.

Says Pat Tippie: “Bentley is the most important building on campus — and we felt that it had to be restored for many generations to come. It is an icon. To me, it is Allegheny.”

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CENTER PUTS STUDENT-FACULTY

As plans developed for a donor-funded renovation of Carr Hall, Professor Eric Pallant suggested what some might consider an unconventional component of a college environmental science center: a teaching kitchen.

Pallant says spaces like the kitchen allow him to show, rather than simply tell, in the classroom. The two-time Fulbright award recipient is working on a book project about the 6,000-year history and science of sourdough bread. Pallant says he can bring lessons from that research to help students become “excited about the world around them” while teaching them to bake bread.

“Students think ‘I’m just kneading bread.’ But while they’re kneading bread, I’m talking to them about what’s going on with this process,” Pallant says. For example, he explains what is happening chemically with the gluten and biologically with the yeast and the bacteria. The discussions also cover ecological, historical and cultural issues that put their breadmaking in a broader societal context.

Support for the Our Allegheny: Our Third Century Quest campaign transformed Carr Hall — constructed in 1964 — into an innovative learning space that puts student-faculty