The Mysterious History of Phillips Hall
By MADDIE BARRETT, KAROLINA KOZAK, and SERENA YUE
Phillips Hall is more than a building — it is a space where, for a century, people have been narrating their own learning. From its earliest days, the place has shaped the way Exonians engage with knowledge, fostering conversations and writing notes on rigid Harkness tables that extend beyond books or time. Every step through its hallways reminds one what the walls have witnessed: decades of evolving pedagogy, hidden rooms and forgotten spaces, and countless voices of students and teachers alike.
In the fall of 1931, Phillips Hall’s construction began as a part of a larger effort to reshape Exeter’s academic environment students experience up to this date. Instructor in English Todd Hearon recalled that most classrooms at the Academy followed a traditional lecture model, the desks were in rows, and when students wanted to speak, they would snap their fingers to get called on. Those were rather large classes, usually about 50 boys.
However, as then-Principal Lewis Perry wrote in an Oct. 1930 letter, this approach was no longer sufficient: “We must be willing to adapt-to build a school that will fundamentally alter the way young men learn. If we continue with our current methods, we will remain ordinary.” In this letter, Perry emphasized that the primary goal must be to structure small classrooms, where students face each other rather than a podium. Edward Harkness, a major philanrophic donor, supported this view and influenced the designing of the building that would encourage new pedagogy.
These conversations allowed Phillips Hall to officially open its doors in 1932 as one of the first buildings specifically designed for the Harkness method. Many people doubted this method. However, the doubts were proved unnecessary when both alumni pre and post-Harkness credited the method with cultivating real discussion and healthy discourse. Hearon, reflected on the era when Phillips Hall was built and its new style to teach. “When you go around campus, you’ll see each building has a cornerstone with a date, and so many of them are in the late twenties and early thirties. The campus just exploded with building developments. It was a hugely revolutionary time, and nobody quite knew whether this Harkness experiment was going to work, but it did.”
In an article written by an anonymous alumnus in 1891, “The Harkness Plan: Will It Survive?” the writer claimed, “The Harkness classroom teaches that skill in communication requires self-control. It taught one not to blurt out unless one was prepared to defend one’s views. Contrariwise, one was encouraged to speak up if one had something to say.” The tendency to logorrhea is counterbalanced by the development of an often-neglected art — that of listening.”
This way of speaking created an easier way for students and teachers to connect. When asked about students making notable connections at the table, Hearon remarked, “There are a lot, and I can’t even number the thousands of students who must have sat around this table. And those are the most memorable relationships that you have. That’s why you’re here. But we’ve had so many illustrious visitors, Lamont poets have come through, other writers have come through, and sat around the table. We’ve even had some students who have gone on to become quite famous writers.”
Beyond the structured classrooms and hallways, faculty members recalled a version of the building that had its hidden and sometimes eerie gems. Instructor in Modern Languages Inna Sysevich reminisced about a time before renovations reshaped upper floors of Phillips Hall. On the fourth floor, at the end of the hallway, Modern Languages used to have a copy room where “occasionally, you could meet a bat that lived in the roof.”
Phillips Hall was once a home to grander spaces that embodied Academy’s traditions. One such space was the legendary debate room on the fifth floor, now replaced by the classrooms. Hearon described that “this room had a stage with curved banisters, chairs that looked like thrones, and wall-to-wall bookshelves with antique books, some of them dating from the 18th century.” The room was more than just a place for debate; English teachers used it for senior meditations that the community now experiences in Phillips Church. “That room was a gem,” Hearon concluded.
According to Instructor in English Mercy Carbonell, the debate room played a crucial role in hosting junior studies final speeches, a multidisciplinary ninth-grade curriculum. Additionally, Hearon recalled, “Rob Richards, in the theater department, used the debate room for theater and speech making classes.” Even though it’s an important space used by the Modern Languages department, the transformation of this room was noted by many as the end of an era.
Another past piece of Phillips Hall history is The Train Room, a relic from a time when PEA was an all boys’ school. “This goes back to the time when Exeter was much more isolated than it is now,” Hearon said. “There weren’t buses to take you away over the weekends, and you had Saturday classes every week. So the boys had to create their own fun.” Part of that creativity was a dedicated room 405 on the 4th floor filled with toy train tracks that once captivated young minds in the 1940s.
Robert Frost, the American poet, was a frequent visitor in Phillips Hall. As Hearon recalled, Frost would sometimes step in as a substitute teacher for English classes. As a reminder of that time, Hearon discovered a signed chapbook of Frost’s poem “One More Brevity,” tucked away in an old department closet. It was autographed “to the PEA English Department, from an old, old friend.”
Just as Frost left his mark on the building, so too did the Little Theater, a small performance space in the basement, now replaced by the computer lab, where students once staged plays and watched films. Carbonell described that “The Little Theater had little rows of seats, a small stage and was big enough to feel like a real performance space.” Although these places are gone, their spirit lives on in the memories of those who remember them.
For Carbonell, Phillips Hall is a place rich with personal memories. She recalled her early years of teaching in the building, specifically the daily ritual of gathering in the Elting Room, where a custodian named Rene made coffee for faculty and staff. “There was a little coffee maker. So we would all gather in the morning, sometimes people would bring donuts and we would sit over coffee and share stories — it was a very lovely community space.” In those moments, faculty would pause from their busy schedules and appreciate the simple joy of being together, strengthening the bonds that made Phillips Hall a meaningful space beyond the classroom.
As time passed, both the building itself and what happened inside were modernized. Throughout the years, the building received modern renovations while keeping the timeless historical aesthetics the building always had. “We used to hold faculty meetings in the Elting Room. Now, due to our heightened commitment to equity and inclusion, we meet in the Forum, where there are microphones ensuring everyone can hear,” commented Ellen Wolff, Instructor in English. “When I arrived at Exeter in the fall of 1995, pre-cell phone and internet, each department had a single telephone in its department room. Over the next few years, each classroom received both a landline and a desktop computer. In more recent years, of course, those have disappeared”
The advancement of technology in society has also impacted the classroom. Having spent much of her career at Exeter, Carbonell witnessed shifts in pedagogy that happened in Phillips Hall. “There was a period where everybody was experimenting with having iPads at the table. Thank God that lasted not very long. And I did not participate. I do not want iPads at the table. I don’t want any technology at the table,” she said. Yet, she acknowledged the unpredictability of education’s future, saying, “I don’t know what the future holds for education, given where we are right now.” While she remains committed to a traditional, discussion-based approach, she admitted that “it depends on what happens with education.”
One of the reasons behind this modernization was the flood in 2006 in Phillips Hall basement, which Hearon describes as one his more prominent memories in the building “It was a moment of catastrophe, a huge storm. It was actually a tornado that came through Exeter with golf-ball-sized hail, and it wiped out every windshield in town. The flood that resulted had water up to waist high. Everything was demolished except for the Harkness table. It lifted and floated to the back of the room. I came down after the flood just to see what could be salvaged. The Harkness table was intact and everything on top of the Harkness table, it was like Noah’s Ark, intact, but everything else was destroyed. So they had to completely renovate the basement.”
Carbonell also lamented the destruction as the result of the flood, “The other things that got lost in the flood were collections of department books that had been saved over the years, hardbound collections. And those were all destroyed.”
The flood also swept away years of student papers, but in an odd turn of events, rubber ducks that had been a long standing joke in Carbonell’s classroom reappeared years later. “They were put into a box, and I thought they were lost forever…and then 10 years later, someone found these boxes with my name on them. And there were the ducks.” Despite the loss, the flood sparked an era of renovation for the building we see now.
Held up by such a rich history, what are the sentiments about the building’s future? “We have access to much more today and we can share information within moments — I can send my students news, videos, music, stories quickly and easily. So our methods of teaching, our tools are getting richer and so we abandon some and adopt some with time. But as for construction, I wouldn’t want anything to ever change, I want this building and those classrooms to remain the way I found them in 1995,” Sysevich commented.
Hearon echoed, “Well, I hope we’re a long time away from another renovation. I don’t think that we’ll need to have that happen soon.”
Although the walls have been repainted hundreds of times, students have come and left, and computers are ushered in and out, there is one thing in Phillips Hall that has and always will embody: the beauty of community and communication. The Harkness method isn’t just a way to discuss an English reading, it’s a way to connect and express yourself. Phillips Hall was crafted by design to uphold this purpose.
