Graphic by Betty Smart ‘26.
By Betty Smart ’26
Staff Writer & Graphics Editor
How well do we all know the residence halls on campus? There are 18 dorms at Mount Holyoke College. All of them were gradually added to campus following the fire that burned down the original Mount Holyoke Seminary Building in 1896. A colorful bunch, the dorms each have distinct quirks and drawbacks. Your personal taste may affect how you see each one, but they all have something to offer that truly makes a resident’s experience unique. This past week, I visited Mead Hall, Wilder Hall and Pearsons Hall, three dorms added to campus roughly at the start of the 20th century.
Photo by Betty Smart ‘26.
Mead Hall
Built in 1901, Mead Hall was the first Mount Holyoke dorm to be built in the 20th century. A bright brick building with a tiled roof between Skinner Green and Mary Woolley Green, it is fairly close to Rooke Theater, Pratt Music Hall, Blanchard Campus Center, and Chapin Auditorium.
Mead’s common room is a busy one, containing all the comforts of college: TV, foosball, a bookcase, a radio, a piggy bank, etc. There is so much in this common room to attract residents that not only does it have its own glass partition, but it is the only common room I have come across with its own physical sign-up sheet posted outside for event planning.
While not a resident, Radhika Gupta ’27 has friends who live in the dorm and expressed admiration for the common room because “[it is] really bright, especially during the day and the afternoon.” Gupta also appreciated Mead’s “really bright interior. The other dorms that I have been to have a really warm light, but the dorms in here are really bright … that’s something that really keeps me feeling positive about being here.”
Resident Mia Saldivar ’26 also spoke positively about living in Mead, recalling, “My first year, I lived in Creighton. … I kind of like Mead more because Creighton was nice, but it also kind of felt like a hotel, like a model house [where] I wasn’t allowed to touch anything. … Mead feels more personal to me.”
In each hallway, the walls are beige, the lighting is bright and the floors are carpeted blue. A few dorms are located in its very white brick basement. Going up, Mead’s three Living-Learning Communities — Mosaic for students of color, Mary Woolley for queer students and APIDA for Asian-Pacific Islander-Desi American students — each have their own lounges on separate floors.
Saldivar spoke of plans to live in APIDA the following year. “I have a couple friends of friends who’ve lived there, and they say the top floor has a pretty nice, personal feel to it. That might be a jump from my current basement situation,”
It is not just the LLCs that draw students to Mead, however. Resident Grace Sanford ’24 praised Mead as being “one of the few accessible dorms; a lot of disabled people get placed here. It’s very nice, it’s new, it’s clean, it’s been renovated recently,” referring to the fire that damaged it in 2021. “I feel very lucky to live here… this is the best dorm I’ve lived in. It’s been the most accessible for my disabilities.” Sanford continued. “There are not very many dorms that are accessible for disabled people on campus, so it’s a lot better living here.”
Wilder Hall
Built in 1899, the similarly red-bricked and tiled-roofed Wilder Hall is located between Blanchard Dining Hall and Skinner Green, and darn near everywhere else in the center of campus. Upon entering the building, one is greeted by an empty concierge desk perched in front of the Golden Pear kitchen. It is a cozy dorm, with one common room containing faded coloring and antique art, and a TV room with a modern blue look and red window seats. “It’s been wonderful [and] relatively peaceful here. I’d say there’s a relatively high sense of community,” said resident Whitney Welch ’27.
Despite a very busy location, “it’s very quiet—quieter than one would expect,” resident Allison Kee ’27 said.
Wilder Hall is definitely the most uniquely colorful of all the dorms, with gray-green carpets, light blue mottled walls that peel in some places and pale green trim around the doors and on both staircases. The hallways are wide with soft, almost dim lighting. Each floor has a kitchenette with its own colorful decorations, including painted wall designs, plants or eclectic little gizmos on the counters. The third floor is also home to the Interfaith LLC, “a community of students dedicated to learning, exploring and celebrating the diversity of religious, [and] spiritual and socially just practices observed at Mount Holyoke and worldwide,” according to the Mount Holyoke College’s Living-Learning Communities webpage.
Though spookiness can be found all over campus, given its age and scope, Wilder Hall has a reputation for being THE haunted dorm. In fact, a room on the top floor remains locked, and residents refer to it as the “ghost dorm.” The Mount Holyoke Archives even has its own haunted tour every Halloween that visits this room. Fortunately, the ghosts have not been very bothersome this year, with Kee adding that there is no trouble “other than the creaking and scrabbling on top of my ceiling that I hear sometimes, which I suspect are squirrels.”
“I wouldn’t say I’ve experienced any supernatural activity, [but] we joke about it a lot, like when things randomly will fall, or when the door will open a little bit, we’re like ‘oh, it’s a ghost,’” Welch said.
Even without many active ghosts, Wilder can still bring the spookiness with a somewhat labyrinthine basement, numerous windowless empty offices and an entry door that requires OneCard access. Getting lost in this place may lead one to the storage center for the Mount Holyoke College Outing Club, or to the building’s abandoned dining kitchen.
“Generally, I’m happy with my experience living here,” Welch said. “I know it’s a highly sought-after dorm during the [housing] lottery, and I think [that’s] for good reason … I think Wilder lives up to the hype and is a very good dorm to live in.”
Photo by Betty Smart ‘26.
Pearsons Hall
Built in 1897, Pearsons Hall is right across the street from Williston Memorial Library and a stone’s throw from the Village Commons and the Gaylord Memorial Library. It is a large brown brick building with yellow trim above the windows and its construction year carved prominently into the entrance facade. While built immediately after the Seminary fire of 1896, Pearsons Hall is distinctly separate from its three compatriots (stay tuned).
Resident Katie Garland ’26 described it as being “central enough … I like the location because we are close enough to everything, but also we’re on the other side of the street from the rest of campus … I like being sort of detached but also not as far as [Dickinson.]”
Despite not being a “split” residence hall like Rockefeller, Mandelle, or Creighton, Pearsons’ residents are truly spoiled with its common spaces. Along with a more traditional red and flowery common room, Pearsons also has a spacious pale sunroom and a massive TV room containing the dorm’s vending machines and foosball and air hockey tables. This room also looks a lot like a traditional college dining hall, with a very high ceiling and flowered wallpaper.
On the upper floors, Pearsons has wide hallways with white linoleum, white walls and a large wooden closet for student storage. On the top floor is a beautiful painted mural featuring the College’s five magnificent creatures — the red pegasus, yellow sphinx, green griffin, blue lion and purple phoenix — alongside a colorful map of the world.
Pearsons’ old-fashioned aesthetic appeals to some residents; Garland opined that the dorm’s hardwood floors “just [look] nicer … My house has hardwood floors [and] my bedroom at home has hardwood floors, so it feels more homey.”
However, it is not without its pitfalls, as the four-story residence hall does not have an elevator. “I live on the fourth floor, so there’s a lot of stairs,” said resident Regina Ortega-Damian ’27. “It’s a good dorm, but I wouldn’t live here again, just my personal opinion.”
Other issues were taken with a perceived lack of respect for quiet hours. “After quiet hours … there’s always a lot of people making noise in the common room.” said resident Kathy Hughes ’25. Garland agreed, “[wishing] that some people were a little more considerate of Quiet Hours and stomping around on their floors when they have downstairs neighbors … But I feel like that probably goes for all the dorms.”
While not as popular as Mandelle or Rockefeller Hall, Pearsons is the third most popular location for parties on campus, ostensibly due to its myriad of party spaces. “I [went] to one, and it was okay,” Ortega said. As an explorer who has lived in Pearsons, I remember that the parties held there could certainly get wild.
“I feel like Pearsons is pretty middle-of-the-road; it’s not a dorm that everyone’s going for, like Wilder or Safford. But it’s not bottom of the barrel either, no offense to Prospect,” Garland said.
An Explorer’s Opinions
The sense one gets visiting these three residence halls is that they have seen many things in their lifetimes. Mead blends a modern look from its colorful common room and Golden Pear with the older “skeleton” of a brick building. Inside, it is a patchwork quilt of LLCs and accessibility-friendly residence halls that I would say back up the “personal” and “positive” feeling described by the residents and nonresidents I spoke to.
Wilder more visibly shows its age in chipping walls, abandoned basements and alleged ghosts. At the same time, the pastel colors make it seem very nostalgic to me, in a non-creepy way. It has also adapted well to the 21st century with a working elevator and accessibility ramp. Not an easy balancing act, but I think Wilder pulls it off.
Pearsons quite literally wears its age on its sleeve; the large 1897 is impossible to miss when entering the building. Walking inside doesn’t really change this, upon seeing the common area’s fancy and flowery paintings, wallpaper and even its mirror. As much as I may love it, I definitely see the need for an elevator. I will reiterate: the dorm is four floors high, not counting its very scary basement.
Changes are necessary to survive a consistently evolving world; this is always apparent in edifices. I’m still happy that these dorms could keep enough of their old-fashioned charm while also being flexible enough to assert themselves as being here to stay.