Saint Luke Hall

Architect: Raphael Knapp, OSB

Contractor: Monks and local workers

Date: 1912; renovated 1974; 1980; 1999 

Saint Luke Hall is a 110 by 60 foot three story brick building added to the southwest corner of the Quadrangle Building. It was built to expand the kitchen located in the southwest corner of the Quadrangle and to add classrooms. The kitchen was on the ground floor; the second floor was for the Junior Department (High School); subsequently the room was called Saint Anselm’s Hall and since 1928 it was a study for the monks studying for the priesthood (clerics). Other rooms were occupied by the Typewriting Department and the third floor served as a common dormitory for the High School. In 1950 the second floor became classrooms for senior seminarians and the third floor became the Art Department in 1951. The Art Department had place for a painting studio, offices, and gallery. This is the first time the plaster was removed in the renovation of the buildings that used St. John’s home made bricks. 

Luke Hall was sometimes merely referred to as the new kitchen.  Before the addition of St. Luke’s Hall, there was built in 1892 a one story, sixty foot long bakery west of the kitchen with its “towering” chimney, long a landmark before the present building was built in 1912.

Today the ground floor remains the kitchen, the first floor contains Institutional Advancement, the Alumni Office, Public Affairs and Information Management Center. The second floor houses the administration and faculty of the School of Theology. Saint Luke Hall is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Bibliography

Hoffmann, Alexius, OSB,  “History of St. John’s : Part III,” SJA archives, p. 252.

Howard, Brice, OSB, “Out of Thy Bounty,” The Scriptorium (March, 1951), pp. 36–41.

Roloff, Ronald OSB, “Now It Is In Building,” The Scriptorium (Spring, 1946), pp. 66–70.