Currier House
Rooted Community
If you’re lucky enough to be sorted into Currier, you’ll find a community as mighty as an oak, with roots just as intertwined as the tree on the House’s shield. Currierites, as residents of the House are affectionately dubbed, show up in full force for House events big and small. IMs? They’re there. Currier karaoke (or should we say, Currioke) night? They’re there. In the dhall for the House Committe’s (HoCo’s) regular but randomly scheduled food drops? They’re there. (Well duh; even as a River resident, I would pull up for some midnight fast food.) Housing Day video filming, months in advance of Housing Day itself? They’re there, and they’re in a tree costume.
Perhaps more important than Currierites’ presence itself is the energy that residents of the Tree House bring to their interactions with others in the community. Currier HoCo chair Giovanni S. Gomez ’27 describes the community as immediately warm and welcoming: “I remember first meeting Chubi [Chibuikem C. Uche ’24] and Tolu [Ademola ’27] and just having those immediate, kind of funny quips with them and having those conversations where it’s just like, these guys, like, talk to you.” So, we promise, the members of the Currier House community are very chill, and in it, you’ll find people that will stop to talk to you instead of asking, “How are you?” and running away before you can answer.
With the House mailing list, Currierwire, and a separate students-only mailing list, Currier Underground, both active, you will have no shortage of opportunities to interact with the people who make Currier House the coziest tree hollow north of the Charles River. Not all of these people are students, though. Some recent graduates, including Uche, remain active in House life as House aides. Meanwhile, tutors are pillars of the House community, hosting small study breaks for Currierites to relax alongside their neighbors while munching on treats like hot chocolate and cookies. One resident tutor, Christopher J. Shallue, adds something even sweeter to life in the House: his adorable dog Ari! Ari can be found periodically in the dhall, where students can pause to give him the cuddles and belly rubs he deserves.
At this point, you might be thinking that Currier couldn’t possibly get more wholesome, but that’s where you’re wrong. Gomez and his HoCo co-chair Natalie T. Weiner ’26 gushed about Bill Oliverio, the Currier Securitas guard. “This morning, I was sitting at breakfast, and he went and sat down with someone who was sitting alone… He just really cares about all of us,” Weiner said. “And so, we love Bill so much.” This sentiment is reciprocated; when Oliverio kept me entertained as I waited for the Quad shuttle, he noted that, of all the Houses he has been a security guard for, Currier was his favorite.
Gomez and Weiner count meeting (and growing to love) Oliverio as a Currier tradition, but this (delightful) experience is not the only event that newly minted trees can anticipate. Currier residents are also invited to an open house held by their Faculty Deans Latanya A. Sweeney and Sylvia I. Barrett, where they’ll find not only amazing food but also Segways. Yes, you read that right; whenever you drop by an open house at Currier, you’ll get to roleplay as an athlete as you zoom around in between delicious bites.
Other consistent House events include themed steins, held once every two weeks, and intramurals, in which Currier residents are loud and proud participants. On an annual basis, Currier students can also look forward to rounds of White Elephant with gifts — including Alexas! — funded by their Faculty Deans; a very fancy dinner in the fall known as the Audrey Bruce Currier Dinner, in honor of the House’s namesake, a member of the Class of 1965; and, in the past two years, a ski trip. Other seasonal events include an Easter egg hunt and Currier’s Heaven and Hell party, a Halloween staple that invariably draws crowds from as far as Mather to dance the night away. Currier’s schedule is more packed than the average Harvard student’s… which is saying a lot.
Life’s Better in the Treehouse
Currier House proper consists of four towers — Bingham, Daniels, Gilbert, and Tuchman — each named for a famous alum… though the Yo-Yo Ma tower, for the beloved '76 alum, is curiously absent (someone should get on that). Some students might be placed in overflow housing in Cronkhite, eleven minutes from the House.
While Cronkhite consists entirely of singles, the style of dorm rooms within Currier proper varies between the towers. Most sophomores will find themselves nested in Daniels, where they can expect to be placed in spacious double and singles connected by a hallway-like room with a sink. Sam R. Vitale ’25, a previous Currier HoCo chair, noted that Daniels’s hallway bathrooms were “super clean,” despite, curiously enough, having a bathtub? Vitale also had an incredibly high rating of Currier’s water pressure; in describing her suite’s bathroom (in Gilbert, not Daniels), she mentioned, “I actually really like our shower. It feels like my home shower, except with better water pressure.”
Though sophomore housing in Currier is already amazing, you’re sure to experience an upgrade after you’ve lived in Currier for a semester or two. Both Gomez and Weiner were able to move to a new room after their first semester in Currier, Gomez from a double to the connected single and Weiner from Cronkhite to Currier proper; Currier’s willingness to move students into more desirable housing options as people leave to study abroad or graduate off-cycle is a unique — and amazing — aspect of Currier’s housing system. Even if you’re not up to a second move-in during your sophomore year, luxurious singles and a few suites are par for the course for upperclassmen in the House. Outside of Daniels, bathrooms are connected to students’ dorms even outside of suites, as pairs of singles share a Jack-and-Jill-style bathroom.
Unfortunately, Currier offers little variety in its available suites, featuring mainly suites of four with few options for larger groups apart from the Ten-Man. (So, sorry, not sorry — you’ll have to find some way to cope with living all of two minutes away from your blockmates.) While the limited range of suite types can restrict students that would like a traditional suite-style dorm, the suites themselves are both gorgeous and spacious. The suites at the top of the towers are known as solarium suites for their floor-to-ceiling windows and their residents’ exclusive access to a large, floor-wide common room with ridiculously nice views.
Hanging in the Canopy
Many of Currier’s numerous common spaces can be found on the Lower Main level (the same floor as the dhall) and are consequently accessible from any of the four towers in Currier proper. The towers’ connection to each other and to this shared common space has made the Currier community even more tight-knit.
Currier’s common spaces are incredibly diverse, including a gym, a dance studio, a reading room, a makerspace, and a meditation room. (It also has upwards of 50 kitchens…) Currier also has many, many general purpose spaces, with common rooms — usually with a kitchen and a TV — on each level of each tower, an arcade, and conference-style rooms known as the Poker Room and the Beehive located near the dhall. If you’re confused by the House with a tree mascot having a room named for bees, stay confused because Currier’s common spaces refuse to be named with tree puns. Other common spaces include the Fishbowl, an open area that most students pass through on their way to the dhall or their rooms, and the Mousehole, a recessed area off of the Fishbowl that features comfy seating, a TV, and a piano.
Fittingly, the most beloved Currier common space is the dhall. Nicole A. Calderon ’25 had this to say about the dhall: “People are there at one, two, three in the morning, always telling stories, always doing something.” Not all of the people you’ll see in the dhall in these wee hours of the night will be Currierites; people are willing to trek in to find some good food and even better company in the space that Weiner calls “the soul of the House.”
Wind in the Willows
Still looking for more info about all that’s up in the Tree House? The HoCo chairs are ready to add timber to the spark of love in your heart for Currier.
If you were to describe your House with a HUDS dish, which would it be?
GSG: The clam chowder. I don’t know why — I love the clam chowder, and I think it gives very much, like, it feels just like Currier, like homey. This is something I need on a cold night, and I’m in my House, my cottage; there’s, like, a warm fire going, and I just have some nice clam chowder I just made.
NTW: I really hate clam chowder… but I agree with the sentiment behind clam chowder.
What do you think is the biggest misconception about your House?
GSG: That the Quad is, like, this distant faraway land.
NTW: It’s really a lot closer than you think. Like, the shuttles are running constantly.
What is one thing you want freshmen to know about your House?
GSG: No matter what, you’re always welcome.
NTW: Everyone in Currier wants to get to know people in the House, and we’re so excited to meet the new freshmen.
Any final words? (Not at all ominous…)
GSG: You know, my friend Ashwin [Sivakumar ’26] said this today: ‘There are 12 Houses, but there's only one home.’ And I think we can end on that, you know?
NTW: Yeah, yeah — I think that sums it up.
With spacious housing, amazing amenities, and a community that really, truly (treely?) cares, Currier House somehow manages to be even better than its Housing Day videos make it seem — and that’s a very high bar. If you’re lucky enough to have been placed in Currier, welcome home.
