Our website is currently under construction! Please forgive any incorrect information.
This page is under construction...
The Greenhouse's current home, the Chaplain's House on University Ave., was built c. 1959 to house the University Chaplain and his family (at the time, the Rev. David B. Collins). Prior to the 1950s, the lot was the site of Powhatan Hall, a private residence turned boarding house for Sewanee students and visitors. Through at least the 1980s, the Chaplain's House was also known as the Phillips House, named for football player and former Sewanee Chaplain Henry D. Phillips.
Below is an excerpt from Charlotte Gailor's Old Sewanee Houses manuscript discussing the history:
"This was where the present Chaplain's house, Phillips House, now stands. We have no picture of the original house on this lot, part of which went back to 1868 and had been built by Mr. Robbins. It was called Waverly and built over for Dr. Dabney. He changed the name to Powhatan as he came from Powhatan County, Virginia. It was a "a mere shell" in 1876 when General Kirby-Smith bought it and built it over. His 10 children grew up in this house and it was the scene of many legends. It burnt in 1891 and the General built the house in the picture on the same site. None of the family have a picture of the first house. The General died in 1895 and his daughters, Miss Bessie who was Postmistress, and then Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Crolly, "Miss Carrie", ran it as a boarding house. Many summer visitors stayed here year after year; Mrs. Washington, Mrs. Wheat, George Wheat's mother, Mrs. Lee Kirby-Smith's mother and sister, among others. For nearly 40 years it was one of the choice places to spend the summer in Sewanee. After Miss Carrie and Mrs. Hale died in 1941 and 1943, the University took it over. It was used for offices and lodgings for the Theological students while St. Luke's was being built over, and it burned in 1956."
Following its evacuation from the Armentrout House over health and safety concerns, the Greenhouse was relocated to Smith hall for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. The organization was housed in Emery Hall for the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years before moving to its present-day home at the Chaplain's House.
The longtime home of the Greenhouse, the Armentrout house, is located on a lot that was originally the site of Alabama Hall, from 1871 to when it burned at some point prior to World War I. By the 1940s, another house had been built on that lot, and in 1948 the house was bought by Bland Mitchell. In the early 1960s, after Mitchell's death, Don and Sue Armentrout moved in. Here's a link to Don's obituary.
The house, the site of the origin of so many beloved Greenhouse traditions like Arm & Trout, Leg & Salmon, and community breakfasts, was declared "unsafe for student habitation" in 2019, prompting the organization's sudden move from its longtime home to emergency housing in Smith Hall.