The St. Olaf College campus is a beautiful place to walk. It has lots of sidewalks, mature trees and magnificent buildings to look at. I took a walk up there last week, planning to stop in at a holiday open house in the newly renovated (well, two years ago now) Steensland Hall.
Steensland Library (now Hall) was built on St. Olaf Campus in 1902. It was the third building to be built on campus. Old Main was the first in 1877, then the Ytterboe Dorm (originally called Men’s Dormitory) was built in 1901. Ytterboe was torn down to make room for the student center, Buntrock Commons, which opened in 1999. Both Old Main and the Steensland Hall are on the National Register of Historic Places.
Steensland Hall, a smaller, quaint, Neoclassical Revival-style building was built close to Old Main. It began as a library then morphed into several purposes over the years, after a new, larger library was built. Then, the Steensland library sat vacant from 2001 until its renovation in 2021.
It was renovated to house the Hong Kirekegaard Library…the largest collection of books (outside of Denmark) by and about the Danish philosopher Søren Kirekegaard. Scholars come to St. Olaf to do their research here, since the books cannot be checked out. The lower level provides cubicles for visiting scholars.
When I walked through the door, I was greeted by a former acquaintance from when I worked up on the hill. Her first words were, “There’s a blast from the past.” I smiled, and she took me on a tour.
Upstairs, which is the entry level, there are a couple of offices, many bookshelves, and a big round oak table in the middle, welcoming people to come and sit a spell, and enjoy the charming and inviting space.
The building has lots of windows, so it’s very light and bright inside. There is a beautiful glass dome in the ceiling which was damaged in the infamous 2006 hailstorm, but the restorer was able to find the original glass provider and acquire more glass to repair the dome.
Of course, the building is now all up to code. There is an elevator, and a handicap assessable bathroom on the lower level, in addition to the work area cubicles, a classroom, and a small kitchen.
I was glad to finally have a chance to go inside and see this small, little building that has so much character.
And I enjoyed a Christmas cookie too.