The Roaring ’20s brought a social stage to Hillsdale, and the Ambler House, located between Broadlawn and the Alpha Tau Omega house, was the center of the social scene.
“In 1920 a group of girls who had become quite satiated with the thrills of sorority life moved over to the Ambler House where they practice Domestic Science and have parties,” the Winona reported in 1924. “One week the girls did not have a party; but they made up for it by having two the next week.”
The house was originally built by Esbon Blackmar, who donated the land for the campus when the college first moved to Hillsdale. The building was originally used as a restaurant and an inn. In 1919, Judge William E. Ambler, a college trustee, bought the house and donated it for use as a dormitory.
The building was used to house the home economics department, then called the Department of Domestic Science. Hillsdale was the first nonstate college in Michigan to introduce a domestic science and homemaking department.
A Household Economics Department bulletin from 1922 explains that as majors in the field, students “get actual experience in marketing, keeping accounts of all expenditures and planning menus for the household.” The women were supervised by science and art instructors, and took classes in “dietetics, cookery, sewing and textiles, house decoration, the science of foods, and education.”
But life in the Ambler house was not limited to the daily grind of domestic artistry. The Household Economics majors developed a reputation for excellent entertainment.
“Ambler comes from the Roumanian which means ‘Don’t Go Home,’” the Winona reported in 1924. “The girls serve fine breakfasts after their parties.”
In 1941, the house was converted into a residence for eight independent women. It remained a dormitory until 1967, when it was renovated to become the health center for the college.
The renovation included a conversion of the rear of the first floor of the house into a reception area, offices, and dispensary rooms. Fluorescent lights were installed and rooms were painted and refurbished. In the years since, the health center has had several updates in equipment and furnishings.
In 1999, the women of Sigma Alpha Iota, a women’s musical honorary, moved into the front room and second floor of the Ambler House while the health center remained in the back of the building. For the next 13 years, the house was a venue for interfraternity events and birthday parties, movie nights, and snowball fights.
“Once SAI did this big event and we invited Mu Alpha and Phi Mu Alpha,” said senior Deb Howe. “We were in that tiny room in the front–all of SAI and everyone from Phi Mu and Mu Alpha who were there were all in that room in a big circle going around meeting each other.”
Residents of the house also experienced some excitement with unwelcome intruders.
“We had a bat get down into the main part of the house once,” said senior Miranda Abner, who lived in the house for three semesters. “All of a sudden, we hear this bloodcurdling scream from the next room. We run in there, and there’s a bat! So we’ve got blankets, somebody grabbed a hamper trying to catch this thing. I called security because I didn’t know what to do. So there were two or three security guys running around with tennis rackets trying to chase it out of the house.”
Bats were not the only visitors.
“One night I heard a sound on the tiles of the laundry room floor in the back of the house and a large thumping down the stairs,” said Renee Nestorak ’10. “Fortunately another girl was still awake and we gained enough courage to follow it down the stairs into the basement to find out what it was. We discovered the muskrat hiding in a corner. Fortunately he was more scared of us than we were of him.”
In 2012, SAI moved to their current house on Union Street, and the health center expanded into the front of the house in its current arrangement.
“People were always in and out. There was always food and there were always pillows out on the floor because that was the seating,” said Howe. “It was a fun house.”
