place

Von Cramm Cooperative Hall

Cornell University buildingsCornell University student organizationsHouses in Tompkins County, New YorkResidential buildings in New York (state)Student housing cooperatives in the United States
Use American English from September 2025
Von Cramm Hall in Winter
Von Cramm Hall in Winter

Von Cramm Hall is a student operated house on the West Campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York State. The residence hall is currently occupied by Redbud Cooperative. The house was founded in 1956 by Thomas Byron Gilchrist (Cornell class of 1906) from the American assets of Elizabeth von Elverfeldt (née Notman) to form a memorial house at the university in memory of her son Friedrich Sigismund von Cramm. Cramm was a lieutenant in the 16th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht who was killed by a Soviet grenade near Mariupol, Ukraine on October 6, 1941. As she had no heirs, von Elverfeldt placed her American assets to Gilchrist and his son in trust, to be used for educational purposes. First occupied in September 1957, Von Cramm housed approximately 30 undergraduate upperclassmen chosen by Cornell's Dean of Men and the Director of Financial Aid. From that time onward new residents were chosen by house members themselves. Two members were compensated for their services: the Steward, in charge of menus and food purchases, and the House Manager (overall management of the building). Members shared house upkeep and food preparation duties. During the 1970s the house became a self-governing co-operative open also to women.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Von Cramm Cooperative Hall (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Von Cramm Cooperative Hall
University Avenue, City of Ithaca

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Von Cramm Cooperative HallContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 42.448943 ° E -76.491319 °
placeShow on map

Address

623

University Avenue 623
14850 City of Ithaca (Ward 5)
New York, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

Von Cramm Hall in Winter
Von Cramm Hall in Winter
Share experience

Nearby Places

Telluride House
Telluride House

The Telluride House, formally the Cornell Branch of the Telluride Association (CBTA), and commonly referred to as just "Telluride", is a highly selective residential community of Cornell University students and faculty. Founded in 1910 by American industrialist L. L. Nunn, the house grants room and board scholarships to a number of undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and faculty members affiliated with the university's various colleges and programs. A fully residential intellectual society, the Telluride House takes as its pillars democratic self-governance, communal living and intellectual inquiry. Students granted the house's scholarship are known as Telluride Scholars. The Telluride House is considered the first program of the educational non-profit Telluride Association, which was founded a year after the house was built and was first led by the Smithsonian Institution’s fourth Secretary Charles Doolittle Walcott. Nunn went on to found Deep Springs College in 1917. The Telluride Association founded and maintained other branches thereafter, two of which—at Cornell University and at the University of Michigan—are still active. The Association also runs free selective programs for high school students, including the Telluride Association Summer Program. In its more than a century of operation, the house's membership has included some of Cornell's most notable alumni and faculty members. Located in the university's West Campus, the Telluride House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Deke House (Ithaca, New York)
Deke House (Ithaca, New York)

Deke House, the Delta Kappa Epsilon or "Deke" House on the campus of Cornell University, was built in 1893 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. It was designed by William Henry Miller to serve as a fraternity house. Two trees which Theodore Roosevelt planted in front of the house are on the National Register of Historic Trees.It is located at 13 South Avenue in Ithaca, New York. The original 1893 building was designed to house only 16 students. Three sides of the exterior were clad with marble from the St. Lawrence Marble Company of Gouverneur, New York. It was built on land leased to the fraternity by Cornell University. Except for World War II, it was occupied continuously by the fraternity from September 1894 through May 2014. During World War II, it was occupied by Navy personnel being trained at Cornell. From September 2014 through May 2018, it housed single, male graduate and professional students. In August 2018, the fraternity returned. In 1900, Miller was retained to design an addition to the original 12 x 15 foot dining room. He enclosed the loggia on the west side of the building to add 500 square feet.In 1910, the fraternity hired the architectural firm of Gibb and Waltz of Ithaca, New York to design a new addition on the east side of the house. In response to objection of the professor occupying 9 South Avenue, Cornell required that the new east wall of the house not have any windows "except such as may be stationary and glazed with cathedral or prism glass or otherwise so that the interior may be invisible from the outside." This wing brought the house to its present form. In the 1990s the south half of the property was converted into a university parking lot. In 1991, the building was added to the national register, and in 2003 the City of Ithaca designated it a Landmark.