Watkins Home

Campus Building Directory

This Week in
KU History

The University
of Kansas

Watkins Home
An Additional Gift of Elizabeth Watkins

Originally the Watkins home for nurses, another of Elizabeth Watkins' building projects, this building housed Watkins Hospital staff until 1974. Each resident had a bedroom and an adjoining bath and they shared a fully equipped kitchen, dining and living room and a sitting porch. Mrs. Watkins supervised the decorating and furnishings of the home, which could house twelve. The residents moved out in 1974 about the time the new Watkins Hospital opened.

Renamed Twente Annex (annex to Twente Hall, which houses the School of Social Welfare), the building was used for community services offices until 1985, when the original name was restored and it became the home for the Hall Center for the Humanities. When the Hall Center moves to its new location in 2005, Watkins Home will again have a new use.

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Location: Sunnyside Avenue and Sunflower Road

Occupied: 1937

Architects: Ray Coolidge, State Architect

Contractor: Basil A. Green, Lawrence

Levels: Three

Structure: Supporting steel and hollow clay tile

Roof: Gray slate shingles; hip; center swept dormer, interior chimney

Exterior walls:
Gray-buff brick and terra cotta

Foundation:
Poured concrete

Door surrounds
Limestone surrounds under balcony

Window surrounds: First floor: header brick slip-sill; vertical brick flat arch; second story: limestone lugsill; windows set under plain frieze