This fine, handsome student-activities building, one of the first of its type in the country is, after the State House, McKim, Mead & White’s only other Providence building. Like Hope College next door, it took cues from University Hall, but instead of Hope’s delicate Federal reinterpretation of the original, here we fully see robust Colonial Revival scale and detail. A gift from the Rockefellers following the graduation of John D. Rockefeller, Jr, it was doubled in size in the late 1920s using designs by Clarke & Howe. As a provision of the gift, Rockefeller, Jr, specified that the enlarged building’s name be changed to honor William H.P. Faunce, president during Jr’s student days.
– 2003 Guide to Providence Architecture
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