Holtzendorff Hall
From ClemsonWiki
Holtzendorff Hall was the original YMCA building at Clemson. The building was the first on the campus financed by private donations, most of which was a gift from John D. Rockefeller. It was designed by Rudolph E. Lee, a member of the first graduating class at Clemson (1896) and the dean of the Department of Architecture at the time the building was constructed (1916). Total cost of the building, furnished, was $78,000, of which the Rockefeller contribution was $50,000; the board of trustees providing $15,000; and faculty, alumni, students, and friends, raising $10,000. The final $3,000 was paid by contributions after completion of the building. It is named for Preston B. Holtzendorff, Jr. (known as "Mr. Holtzy") who arrived as assistant secretary of the "Y" in 1916 and soon became general secretary. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
It is the current home to the department of General Engineering.
On the Mell Hall side of the building is the old sun deck and indoor swimming pool, neither of which has been used in years. The pool was drained long ago and is currently used for storage. The glass-block windows, seen from the outside, are on the second story of the pool area. Around the pool area are old locker rooms, showers, a steam room, and tanning room. These areas, like the pool, are used for General Engineering storage. There are plans (as of 2005) to reclaim the pool area for classroom use.
Swimming pool scenes with Burt Lancaster and Catherine Bach in The Midnight Man were filmed in the Holtzendorff pool. During the 1980s, when the Clemson University bands were quartered in the basement of the Y, male band members used the old pool locker room space as a dressing area.
A university-hosted barber shop was located in the basement until 1975. After the end of cadet haircuts, the business diminished until it was no longer sustainable. It was used as the music library for the university bands until they moved to the new Brooks Center facility. It now serves as the office of the Clemson Engineering And Science General Engineering Lab supervisor.
The former gymnasium on the ground floor served as the music department's bandroom from 1977 until the Brooks Center opened. Now it is the Design Project Lab. The former wardrobe room for Tiger Band now serves as the National Science Foundation-sponsored Expert Laboratory Experimental Engineering in Real Time.
The sub-basement, currently used by the Air Rifle Club, was originally a bowling alley and, after that, a coffeehouse known as The Gutter.
