A History of The Harvey School

Celebrating 100 Years

A H

istory of The H

arvey School | Celebrating 100 Years

Dr. Herbert S. Carter and his wife, Mabel, started The Harvey School in 1916 with the

belief that strong community is the foundation for successful education.

A century later, the heart of Harvey beats strong in its students, faculty, alumni, and parents.

260 Jay Street • Katonah, NY 10536-3707 • 914.232.3161 • www.harveyschool.org

1927, future home of The Harvey School Katonah campus today

Our Mission

What began as a boarding school for boys in grades 3–8 is now a co-educational school for grades 9–12, with a combination of day students and 5-day boarders. The Harvey School provides a college preparatory program that fosters lifelong learning and inspires students to develop the confidence and leadership qualities necessary to succeed in a diverse, competitive, and changing world. With our commitment to small class size, our community cultivates the strengths of each student through academic excellence, artistic exploration, athletic achievement, community service, and global understanding.

A contemporary Harvey Cavalier

© The Harvey School

Producer: Sally BreckenridgeWriter: Cheryl BardoeDesign: Good Design LLC

The Harvey School offers its deep appreciation to the century of students, alumni, faculty, and friends whose memories and other contributions made this book possible.

Special thanks to the following for their content and editorial help: Harry Dawe, Dennis Dilmaghani ’62, Frank Perrine, Leverett Smith, Jr. ’52, and Frank Weil ’44.

Historic photos in this publication are sourced from The Harvey School archives and generous alumni and friends. Original photography also supplied by Good Design.

COVER PHOTO: A sunny afternoon on the Hawthorne campus

The Harvey School260 Jay StreetKatonah, NY 10536914-232-3161www.harveyschool.org

CONTENTS

1 Introduction: What Gives Harvey Its Heart?

3 Chapter 1: The Carter Years

4 Dr. Carter Sees a Need 8 Seeking an Outdoor Life 10 From Working Farm to Full-Grown School 14 Leaders for a Life of the Mind 16 Founders’ Son Becomes Strong Headmaster 20 Pranks and Punishments 22 Creating a Community 25 The End of an Era

27 Chapter 2: Hawthorne Under Headmaster Smith

28 A New Leader 30 Weathering Wartime 33 Academic Achievements 37 A Day in the Life 40 Tried-and-True Traditions 44 Goodbye to Hawthorne

47 Chapter 3: Settling in at Katonah

48 Establishing a New Home 54 New Campus Inspires New Traditions 59 Times of Transition 64 A Changing World 68 Traditions in the Classroom 72 Fires Challenge Community 74 A New Harvey Emerges

77 Chapter 4: Reinforcing School Foundations

78 Lasting Leadership Meets Challenges 84 Modernizing Harvey’s Campus 90 Connecting to Community 92 Yesterday’s Traditions and Students Today

99 Chapter 5: Growing in New Directions

100 A 21st-Century School

105 Conclusion

106 Appendix

6

1

What Gives Harvey Its Heart?Harvey embodies these timeless educational principles:•Valueeachstudent’sindividuality.• Inspirestudentstotakeonchallengesanddeveloptheirstrengthsinside and outside the classroom.• Supportlearnersastheystriveforcontinuousimprovementinpursuit of their best.

Thus students of yesteryear who visit Harvey today still recognize the warm sense of community, small class sizes, and academic excellence that distinguished the school in their own eras. As Harvey commemorates its centennial anniversary, we celebrate what our school always has been and always will be: a place where each child can discover his or her special talents.

Harvey’s story begins in 1916, in the Manhattan home of Dr. Herbert S. Carter and his wife, Mabel, who understood that education takes place in the context of community….

OPPOSITE PAGE & LEFT: Engaged students in 1960s and now ABOVE: A Harvey Cavalier channels school spirit

2

CHAPTER 1

The Carter Years 1916–1938

“My years at Harvey are best expressed by 17th-century British poet Ben Jonson: ‘In small proportions we just beauties see;

And in short measures life may perfect be.’”—J. Earle Stevens, Jr. ’24

4 | Celebrating 100 Years

TImE CAPSuLE

1916–1925 1926–1935

Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt

Student-written articles in the Harvey Monthly

A Day in the Adirondack Mountains, Riding the Transcontinental Railroad, Immigration Laws in California

Visiting the Place in France Where the Armistice Was Signed to End the Great War, Railway Growth, The Merits of the League of Nations

Literary giants Willa Cather, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, Virginia Woolf

At the box office Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks

Rudolph Valentino, Claudette Colbert, Buster Keaton, Greta Garbo

median house cost $6,187 $8,236

median car cost $440 $380

milk gallon $0.36 $0.56

Historical events (1916) First self-service grocery store opens in U.S., (1917) U.S. Enters WWI, (1919) Treaty of Versailles ends WWI, (1920) First commercial radio broadcast, (1922) King Tut’s Tomb discovered

(1927) Lindbergh flies solo across Atlantic, (1928) Penicillin discovered, (1929) Stock market crashes, (1930) Pluto discovered, (1934) The Dust Bowl

Dr. Carter Sees a Need

In 1915, The Great War had already begun in Europe, actor Charlie Chaplin was debuting as “the Tramp” on the silent screen, and New York City was about to overtake London as

the world’s largest metropolis. Penicillin was more than a decade from being discovered, so scarlet fever still struck fear in the heart of every parent nursing a child through sweats and chills. When the illness hit the midtown Manhattan home of Dr. Herbert S. Carter and his wife, Mabel, it took a toll on their eldest son and developed into rheumatic fever, which can permanently damage heart valves. The worried Carters bundled Herbert Jr. off to recover at a working farm the family had purchased as a rural retreat in Westchester County. After a year of recuperation, the 15-year-old was much improved, but his heart was too weak for the regular routine at the Allen-Stevenson School where he had been enrolled. Although he had little chance on a rigorous athletic team, Herbert Jr. was allowed to ride horses and partici-pate in less strenuous activities. Dr. Carter prescribed an outdoor life and surmised that other youths would benefit from the same. In September 1916, thus began The Harvey School in a two-story, white farmhouse half a mile from the hamlet of Hawthorne, New York. Dr. Carter named the school after William Harvey, the English physician who first recognized the heart as the vital organ that pumps blood through the circulatory system. Given the school’s origins, perhaps it is not surprising that Dr. Carter documented this inauspicious start: “At the first meal there sat down two masters and two boys, the rest of the school (two boys) being detained by illness.” Nonetheless, the students’ bodies and minds thrived—as did the school. By June 1917, eight more boys had enrolled. The heart of The Harvey School that we cherish had begun to beat.

Dr. Herbert S. CarterDr. William Harvey

The Carter Years | 5

TOP: 1923 The first known all-school portrait; Headmaster Miner in back row, third from left, Dr. Carter in back row, third from right LEFT: 1926 Ready for kickoff ABOVE: Harvey’s campus began as a working farm

26 | Celebrating 100 Years

CHAPTER 2

Hawthorne Under Headmaster Smith

1938–1959 “Happiness is not doing what you want to do, but liking what you have to do.

I thank Harvey for a great education and way of life.” —Edgar B. Parsons ’40

36 | Celebrating 100 Years

TOP: Daily greeting by Nurse Mona Watts Lyon and Headmaster Smith LEFT: Morning prayer RIGHT: Graham crackers and milk tide boys over until lunch

Hawthorne Under Headmaster Smith | 37

A Day in the Life

Life at Harvey followed an unswerving schedule. Beds faced the windows so that the morning sun would stir boys at the 7 a.m. rising bell. Boarders had 30 minutes

to dress, make beds, and stand for room inspection before crunching across the gravel drive. Nurse Mona Watts Lyon welcomed every student to breakfast with a handshake, ensuring that general health and attire measured up. No coat in the cold? No overshoes in the rain? That would garner a demerit, plus a walk back to the dorm through the offending weather to correct the issue. At 8:20, Headmaster Smith presided over morning prayers and announcements, including a public broadcast of the day’s Walk List recruits. Morning classes took a 15-minute recess around 10:30 for graham crackers and milk; then students were back at it until the lunch hour at 1:15 p.m.

After lunch students could buy a candy bar—but no chewing gum—from the Tuck Shop. They received seven nickels per week for this purpose and the treasured candy was savored over the Reading Hour, when students could read any book of their choice from the library. Mr. Doherty ’44 remem-bered Dr. Doolittle books being quite popular, and was duly impressed with the patience of classmate Charlie Smithers ’44, “who could make a Hershey bar last the whole 60 minutes.” The bulk of the afternoon, from 2:30 to 5:00 p.m., was devoted to sports. With many childhood ailments fading into the past, most boys now arrived at Harvey strapping and striving. Those who didn’t were out of luck, because everyone was expected to wrestle and play football, basketball, soccer, hockey, and baseball—and they were expected to play their best.

LEFT: After lunch treats at the Tuck Shop RIGHT: Reading Hour in the library

46 | Celebrating 100 Years

CHAPTER 3

Settling in at Katonah1959–1985

“Boarding at Harvey gained me independence and opened my horizons. The most important lesson I learned there was to not be afraid to do what was right.”

—Bob Brinkerhoff ’70

48 | Celebrating 100 Years

Establishing a New Home

On September 22, 1959, Harvey students started school at their new 70-acre campus in Katonah, New York. The 121-student enrollment was at a peak, and day

students (tuition $1,000) outnumbered boarders (tuition $2,200) for the first time. In many ways, the new campus was reminiscent of the early years in Hawthorne. Katonah was an assembly of farms and country estates spread over 40 square miles, surrounding a town center with a train station. Its gently rolling hills were carved by ancient rivers. Mature woodlands offered shade in the summer and testified to nature’s glory in the fall. This bucolic campus embodied the heart of the old country school, and the 1958 Rambler declared: “There should be no change in the school with one exception, this being that we must revise the school song so that it will read: “Harvey School lay in a valley; Now it’s on a hill.” The other difference, however, was the sparkling new facili-ties, produced by an 18-month flurry of construction. Two dorms each housed 32 students and four masters. Carter Hall was a modern cinderblock building featuring 10 classrooms, a study hall large enough to double as an auditorium, the dining room, the kitchen, plus faculty apartments. The stables had been renamed Woolsey House and renovated to include a game room, science rooms, art rooms, a shop room, plus apartments for school staff. Of course, some things were not complete: Delivery of lockers was delayed because of a steelworker strike. Faculty and facilities staff worked throughout the year to prepare athletic

fields and install goal posts and baseball backstops in time for each sports season. The McConnell Gymnasium, named after donors David H. McConnell ’42 and Neil Anderson McConnell ’43, would open in 1961. Nonetheless, the Harvey community focused on the positive. “It was like going to a different school because everything was so new,” said Mr. Dilmaghani ’62. “The Katonah campus is more expansive and perfectly suited for the kind of school that Harvey is.” While Hawthorne holds a special place as the school’s first home, nostalgia for the old campus faded among students of the day. By November an editorial in The Rambler read, “Naturally because we have so many new buildings on a beautiful site, the school is a much better place in which to learn and live.” An elegant structure named Sylvan Hall anchored the new campus. This building began as a farmer’s house in 1790 and had been modernized and expanded in 1936, under the direc-tion of Sylvan Weil. One unique architectural feature was a wing created from a 150-year-old house in London that had been

Settling in at Katonah | 49

TImE CAPSuLE

1966–1975 1976–1985

Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford

Gerald R. Ford, James Carter, Ronald Reagan

Topics of interest to Harvey students (Neperans and Pocanticos debated)

Whether UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin; Whether money spent on the space race should be spent on domestic problems

Whether Harvey School should become coed; Whether capital punishment should be abolished

Literary giants Maya Angelou, Betty Friedan, Neil Simon, Kurt Vonnegut, Eudora Welty

E.L. Doctorow, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker

At the box office Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Cicely Tyson

Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Al Pacino

median house cost $22,084 $44,200

median car cost $2,650 $5,010

milk gallon $1.12 $1.65

Historical events (1967) First heart transplant, (1968) Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated, (1969) Apollo lands on moon, (1974) Nixon resigns after Watergate scandal (1974) Rubik’s Cube invented (1975) Vietnam War ends

(1976) Apple Inc. is founded to sell personal computers, (1979) Nuclear accident occurs at Three Mile Island, (1979) Iranian hostage crisis, (1981) Sandra Day O’Connor becomes first woman on U.S. Supreme Court, (1982) Film director Steven Spielberg releases E.T.

dismantled and shipped across the ocean. The floor-to-ceiling, hand-carved paneling provided an elegant backdrop for the school’s library. Much like the original farmhouse at Hawthorne, the home in which Frank Weil ’44 had grown up was trans-formed into school offices, an infirmary, and apartments for the headmaster and other faculty. Representing the feel of the previous campus, yet set on the new grounds, this building became a symbol of Harvey. Its colonnaded front provided a backdrop for commencement ceremonies for many years. Harvey’s traditions soon filled its new home. In addition to classes and daily student life, the school marked the passing of the year with the Halloween party, sports seasons, holiday celebrations, the school birthday party, and the largest attendance yet on Parents’ Day. Dances continued to add excitement to the school calendar, with girls in attendance from nearby schools. As Headmaster Smith wrote in a 1960 Rambler, “Harvey’s soul began to find nour-ishment in its new surroundings, and that intangible spirit of the school continued to permeate the atmosphere.”

OPPOSITE PAGE: Relaxing by the pool ABOVE: Dorm fun stacks up RIGHT: 1961 Fifth Form in front of Sylvan Hall

76 | Celebrating 100 Years

CHAPTER 4

Reinforcing School Foundations

1985–2016 “Hard work and setting achievable goals were so much a part of what I learned at Harvey.

Having passion guides your action and helps you live up to your potential.”—Gregory Jurschak ’06

84 | Celebrating 100 Years

Modernizing Harvey’s Campus

The first major expansion during Headmaster Fenstermacher’s tenure occurred in 2002, when six rooms were added to the former Hickrill labs to

transform that building into the Krasne Middle School. This building was named for Charles A. Krasne, who has been an influential trustee since joining the board in 1984. The father of P. T. Thatcher Krasne ’86, Mr. Krasne also created the Charles A. Krasne Project, which enabled Harvey to invest in cutting-edge learning technology in the 1990s and remain current ever since. Harvey first received a specified gift to improve arts facili-ties in 1992, when a classroom was retrofitted to become a blackboxtheater.TheVictoriaWyndhamTheaterwasnamedfor the trustee and mother of two Harvey alumni—but more widely known as a television and stage actress—who under-wrote the renovations.

TOP LEFT: Krasne Middle School TOP RIGHT: Brendan Byrne near the school bell that once rung on the Hawthorne campus ABOVE LEFT: Tammy and Charles Krasne ABOVE RIGHT: Eileen Walker LEFT: Plaque from the Wyndham Theatre

Reinforcing School Foundations | 85

Yet Harvey did not have comprehensive facilities on par with the quality of its arts instruction until 2006, with the opening of The Walker Center for the Arts. This 20,000-square-foot building is specifically designed for and dedicated to arts educa-tion, complete with studios for every discipline of visual and performing arts. With its dramatically pitched tin roof and tall windows, this architectural gem is named in honor of the Walker family—Board Chair Eileen and her husband, Jay, and their children, Evan ’03 and Lindsey ’05. The building features the Lasdon Black Box Theater—a state-of-the-art facility that can be configured to suit any production. Wall panels

ABOVE: The Walker Center for the Arts BELOW: 2007 Performance of Anything Goes

98 | Celebrating 100 Years

Growing in New Directions | 99

CHAPTER 5

Growing in New Directions

Looking to the Future“The founding Carters would, with conviction, say today’s Harvey is ‘right on’ in a

mission of building character, integrity, and personal responsibility, and doing it with as much intensity as you bring to academic preparation.”

—John Luke ’40

A History of The Harvey School

Celebrating 100 Years

A H

istory of The H

arvey School | Celebrating 100 Years

Dr. Herbert S. Carter and his wife, Mabel, started The Harvey School in 1916 with the

belief that strong community is the foundation for successful education.

A century later, the heart of Harvey beats strong in its students, faculty, alumni, and parents.

260 Jay Street • Katonah, NY 10536-3707 • 914.232.3161 • www.harveyschool.org

1927, future home of The Harvey School Katonah campus today

Our Mission

What began as a boarding school for boys in grades 3–8 is now a co-educational school for grades 9–12, with a combination of day students and 5-day boarders. The Harvey School provides a college preparatory program that fosters lifelong learning and inspires students to develop the confidence and leadership qualities necessary to succeed in a diverse, competitive, and changing world. With our commitment to small class size, our community cultivates the strengths of each student through academic excellence, artistic exploration, athletic achievement, community service, and global understanding.

A contemporary Harvey Cavalier