Students Rebuild 'Unlivable' House

No one knows much about the old three-story building behind Kirkland House. According to the University, it is "unfit for human habitation." But six students in the School of Design call it home and spend their spare time rebuilding it.

It all started last spring when the proprieter, a Mrs. Murphy, decided she was too-old to care for the house herself. She put the building up for sale and it was bought by the University, which planned to tear it down and erect a more useful structure. The house was then in pretty had shape--so bad, in fact, that Harvard declared it unlivable.

By some fast talking, the students persuaded the University to grant them rent-free occupancy for three years. "We were just looking for a place to live," says Paul J. Miterarchi 2GD.

Students in Project

The other men engaged in the project are John Lohmann, Parker A. Kitchell, Charles F. Mansfield '46, Richard H. Wheeler '46, and Robert L. Mackintosh, all 2GD.

Under the agreement, the new occupants took over all responsibility for the house, paying taxes, repairing, gas, and electric bills. The papers were signed, and the work began last June 16.

By the end of the summer, after two months of pounding, sawing, and scraping, the house began to assume an air of respectability. One of the big jobs was wrecking an old shed which nearly filled the space between the house and the one next door--formerly the barn of the Murphy house.

New Foundation

They had to pour a new foundation, rip out and rebuild a chimney, install new floors and beams, and generally tear the place apart, outside and in. The group moved in October 1.

The house has six rooms, three double bedrooms and a single on the top floor, and a kitchen and living room downstairs.

All that remains to be done is painting the house and refinishing the downstairs rooms. "We expect to be through with it in about a month," says Matarachi. All the men claim they wouldn't have done it if they had known what the job would require. "We practically rebuilt the place," they say.