Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, December 05, 1980, Image 1

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    Vol. 82, No-64 45
Eugene, Oregon 97403
Friday, December 5, 1980
1
. . Photo by David W Zahn
The University president s home, a four-floor mansion which comes complete with museum art pieces, stands empty while a committee searches for its next occupant
President’s residence sits idle
By BILL MANNY
Ol the Emerald
In the home provided for University presidents,
there's a sign propped against a vase of flowers and
cattails in the stairwell between the second and third
floors.
It reads "Public Restrooms Downstairs.”
Therein lies the public-private dichotomy of life
for the University President.
The University provides its president with the
house as part of the salary, not a fringe benefit, says
Mary Hudzikiewicz, community services director.
It comes in addition to the $63,000 the president
receives in wages and expenses. The University and
the physical plant picks up the $500-a-month tab for
the heat, phone, electricity, cleaning service and
maintenance.
It's a handsome offer, one that can help the
University draw top-notch people to the post.
"I think it helps,” says Charles Duncan, jour
nalism professor emeritus and head of the presidential
search committee
Finding a place to live on short notice isn't an easy
task, and having a comfortable and furnished place to
offer an incoming president is an advantage, Duncan
says.
Presidential homes are common in university
circles, says Hudzikiewicz, whose job as assistant to
vice president Curt Simic includes keeping an eye on
the house and guiding tours.
Schools often give their top administrators homes
or living stipends, she says. While a president is not
required to live in the University-provided home, he
receives no stipend otherwise.
Also provided with the four-floor home are works
from the University art museum — interior decoration
few homeowners could afford or rival.
The house's Tudor architecture is simple, its
appointments understated but stately. Comfortable
furnishings, simple brass handrails, large picture
windows checkered in small, wood-framed panes,
high ceilings and heavy doors — this old non-mansion
recalls the days when less was more and gaudy design
anathema
Not that the place isn't impressive — or expensive
The house would fetch $250,000-$300,000 or more on
the market today, assuming a buyer could be found for
a home with such a hefty price tag
The University bought the house for $15,000 in
1941, and George McMorran donated $10,000 of the
purchase price to the University
There are dozens of rooms in the McMorran place
— five full bathrooms, five bedrooms and a den with a
terrace, a huge kitchen outfitted with a pair of stoves
and a breakfast bar, a formal dining room, a breakfast
room, a formal living room with an adjoining sun
porch, a basement family room with a bar, a two-car
garage
It's a house worthy of a University president,
worthy of University art pieces, worthy of guests like
Gerald Ford and conductor Helmuth Rilling
But today the works of art are gone, the house is
empty and its furnished living quarters are void of the
amenities that distintguish a home from a house
Footsteps normally resound here in rooms with
high ceilings, in halls with bare wood floors. But the
echo is louder and mustier now as this mansion on the
hill awaits its new occupant — the winner of the
presidential sweepstakes who’ll move in on July 1,
1981.
The McMorran House, at 2315 McMorran, hasn't
had a president resident since Bill Boyd moved out in
1979 following his divorce near the end of his five-year
tenure. As an acting president, Paul Olum doesn’t
have the option of living there
In the interim the University asked a local couple
to stay there for security purposes. They moved out
when alumni director Vince Bilotta came to University
this summer. He and his 14-year-old son are residing
in two upstairs bedrooms until the rest of the family
can join them in Eugene
Entrepreneur McMorran built his home in 1923.
Located in the stylish Fairmount neighborhood in
southeast Eugene near Hendricks Park, the cream
and gray mansion is a living chapter of University
history. There’s the extra room O. Meredith Wilson
converted to a bedroom in the 1950s when he lived
there with his large family. There's the room Bill Boyd
converted to a den, where the erstwhile president
must have paced and sweated over University revolu
tionaries and athletic scandals
The first University president to move in was
Donald Erb, who left the Collier House on East 13th
and University in 1941. The Collier House then
became the faculty club.
Erb was followed by Harry Newburn, Wilson,
Arthur Flemming, Robert Clark and Boyd
Boyd’s successor is still several months away
from selection, according to Duncan, who only would
say that the committee has narrowed the list of
applicants down "to a manageable number "
So while the search committee pares its list of
potential presidents, the McMorran House waits emp
ty, like a University motel, blinking its vacany