Terrace aims to raise $3.5 million for renovations

Terrace Club has begun planning for renovations to its clubhouse through the Terrace Future Campaign, which seeks to raise $3.5 million from about half of the 4,000 living alumni of the eating club.

The renovations include redesigning and modernizing the servery, expanding the existing dining room, building an all-purpose room mainly intended for musical performances, constructing a new staircase and an elevator, adding a bedroom to the officers’ quarters and greening the clubhouse, according to the Terrace Future Campaign’s case statement.

Terrace and its alumni began considering the renovations in late 2010, according to Terrace Future Campaign Committee Chairman Sandy Harrison ’74.

Harrison explained that he and other Terrace alumni considered the renovations after becoming aware that other clubs were undertaking capital campaigns to renovate their own clubhouses.

“After spending some time really talking to alumni, and really figuring out what our situation is, we concluded that it was worth exploring,” Harrison said. “We realized that we had a pretty strained clubhouse that’s had a lot of deferred maintenance, a lot of things that just need attention, and we also discussed about some possible expansion plans, not as grandiose as some of the other clubs though, which we don’t need or want, but we’re looking at some of that.”

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According to the Terrace campaign’s case statement, though the Terrace clubhouse was reconstructed in the wake of a 1987 fire with emergency funding from alums, this reconstruction did not address infrastructure or expansion needs. The Terrace clubhouse has not had a full-scale renovation since the 1920s.

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Harrison explained that Terrace has been working with an architect, who is identified in the case statement as former University professor Terry Smith ’79 of Richardson Smith Architects in Princeton. Smith has developed building plans for the renovation, which can be viewed on the Terrace Club website.

“They’ve come a long way. They’re not final because we just keep getting input and feedback from alumni as they become aware of it,” Harrison said. “We’re looking at it as evolutionary, but I’d say that it’s pretty far along as far as basically what we want to do, in terms of both renovation and some modest expansion.”

Harrison said that the Terrace Future Campaign Committee has also begun working on fundraising from alumni, who have responded positively overall to the campaign.

“The overwhelming majority of alumni who are aware of what is in the works feel that they think we need to do it,” Harrison said. “If there’s one overall consensus, we want to stay where we are, we want to fix up the place we have, and we don’t want to change the character of the building — the Tudor style, the look and feel of it.”

Harrison said that the campaign still has fundraising to do before the renovations can begin, but he hopes that the clubhouse’s renovations will start “maybe by summer of next year.” However, he explained that there is not yet a deadline for the completion of the renovations.

“There’s no external or internally imposed time frame to get this done. We could’ve decided to do nothing, but it’s very clear that the clubhouse needs work, and we want to make sure we’re around for another 50, 100 years,” Harrison explained.

“We’re not after marble flooring or mahogany woodwork,” said Harrison. “That’s not what we want. We don’t need it, we don’t want it.”

Terrace president Neal Donnelly ’14 declined to comment for this article.