Princeton Quadrangle ClubSince 1901

History

The Princeton Quadrangle Club has a long and humble history as one of eleven Princeton University eating clubs. Founded in 1901, Quad has been the home away from home to hundreds of Princeton alumni, such as Sir Gordon Wu and Jeff Bezos, to name a few. Quad is known as one of the more diverse and welcoming clubs at the University. Quad has hosted amazing concerts for Lawn Parties, with previous acts including Maroon 5, Rihanna, B.o.B and Big Sean. Quad's game room is the best on the Street, and Pub Night is the most delicious night on the Street. Most Dranglers consider Quad their home on campus, and can be found within the building's four corners day and night.

  1. 1901

    A first clubhouse across the street

    Black-and-white photo of about twenty young men in suits posed on the clubhouse porch
    Founding members from the Classes of 1902 and 1903 in front of the clubhouse, 1902

    In 1896, Ivy Club bought a lot on the south side of Prospect Avenue to build a new Gothic-style clubhouse. The house on the site, once the home of Professor Henry Burchard Fine, Class of 1880, was moved to the north side of Prospect. In 1901, the newly formed Quadrangle Club took over this house as its first clubhouse.

    The architect of the Fine house is unknown, but it was built in the late 1880s and was a fine example of the shingle style. Fully sheathed in shingles, it had a gambrel roof with a variety of gables, porches and bays.

  2. 1903

    Back across Prospect, with a new wing

    An old photo of Prospect Avenue with several large houses and a horse-drawn carriage
    Quadrangle Club after moving the clubhouse to the south side of Prospect (the future site of Tower Club), between Cannon and Campus clubs, around 1903

    Quadrangle moved the house back across Prospect Avenue to a site just east of Campus Club, where Tower Club stands today, and thoroughly renovated it. A large wing was added at the rear, with a wraparound porch on the front and west side.

    The shingle style stayed, but many of the original's most interesting details were lost, including the gables and bays that gave the facade its texture.

  3. 1910

    The McCosh house

    The shingled Fine house with a wide wraparound porch
    The Fine house, around 1910

    Quad stayed in the Fine house until 1910, when the club bought the house the University had built in 1887 as a retirement home for President McCosh and his wife, Isabella. It was designed by New York architect A. Page Brown, only 28 at the time: a handsome, shingled house in the Colonial Revival style. Several architectural historians have argued that Brown drew heavily on his design for the Taylor house in Newport, Rhode Island, though the McCosh house is smaller and less ornamented.

    A two-story house with a columned front porch
    The McCosh house, around 1912

    Unlike many Colonial Revival houses, the McCosh house was asymmetrical. A photo of the rear taken after Quad moved in shows the curved, off-center dining room with three large windows facing south. It also shows a major change Quad made: a second story added above the covered piazza on the west end.

  4. 1916

    Henry Milliken's clubhouse

    A pencil sketch of a symmetrical brick building with a central portico
    Henry Milliken's sketch of the new clubhouse, around 1915

    By 1915, Quadrangle had decided the McCosh house was not large enough, or grand enough. The next year it sold the house to Lloyd Grover, who moved it to its current spot on Nassau Street, a block from Harrison Street. Quad then asked one of its board members, Henry Milliken, Class of 1905, to design a new building.

    Milliken's plan called for a classic brick Georgian Revival building, its corners marked by white quoins, with a large entrance portico. The facade is rigidly symmetrical, with eight tall sash windows framing the entrance. The portico, the club's most notable feature, was modeled on the entrance to Westover, one of the great houses of Tidewater Virginia, built in the 1730s.

Want to learn more, or contribute a story, book or artifact to the collection? Get in touch. When you're at the clubhouse, stop by the Huston Library to see Quadrangle artifacts, memorabilia and books by Quad alumni.

Video about the early history of Quad

Notable alumni

The Digital Wall of Fame celebrates Quad alumni who distinguished themselves in their careers, made eating club history, or gave significant service to Princeton or to Quad. Have a candidate? Let us know.

  • Stephen Ailes

    Class of 1933

    • Secretary of the Army (1964–1965)

  • Raymond W. Apple, Jr.

    Class of 1957

    • Emmy Award-winning correspondent and associate editor, The New York Times

  • Jeffrey P. Bezos

    Class of 1986

    • Founder and CEO, Amazon.com and Blue Origin
    • Owner, The Washington Post

  • David P. Billington

    Class of 1950

    • Princeton University Professor of Engineering (1960–2010)

  • John Peale Bishop

    Class of 1917

    • Poet; author of Green Fruit, The Undertaker's Garland (with Edmund Wilson) and Selected Poems (1941)

  • Robert N. Burt

    Class of 1959

    • Chairman and CEO, FMC Corporation (1991–2002)

  • W. Hodding Carter III

    Class of 1957

    • President, The Knight Foundation
    • Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs (1976–1980)

  • B. Paul Cotter, Jr.

    Class of 1959

    • Chief Judge, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (1980–1999)
    • President, Class of 1959 (1979–1984, 2004–2009)
    • President, Princeton Quadrangle Club Foundation (2023–present)

  • Ralph D. DeNunzio

    Class of 1953

    • CEO, Kidder, Peabody & Company
    • Chairman, New York Stock Exchange (1971–1972)
    • Chairman, Securities Investor Protection Corporation
    • Trustee of Princeton University; supporter of DeNunzio Pool and Princeton Stadium

  • Robert K. Durkee

    Class of 1969

    • Vice President and Secretary, Princeton University (2004–2019)

  • Sarah Beth Durst

    Class of 1996

    • Novelist: Conjured, Enchanted Ivy, Ice, Vessel

  • Laura L. Forese

    Class of 1983

    • Trustee, Princeton University (2015–2023)
    • President, NewYork-Presbyterian

  • Frederic E. Fox

    Class of 1939

    • Pastor; first Keeper of Princetoniana
    • Secretary, Princeton University (1964–1981)
    • Special Assistant to President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1957–1961)

  • Robert F. Goheen

    Class of 1940

    • President, Princeton University (1957–1972)
    • Ambassador to India (1977–1980)

  • F. Allen “Tex” Harris

    Class of 1960

    • Diplomat; President, American Foreign Service Association (1993–1997)
    • Consul General in South Africa and Australia; human rights officer in Argentina

  • Yoshio Hatano

    Class of 1956

    • Ambassador of Japan to the international organizations in Geneva (1986–1989) and to the United Nations (1989–1994)

  • James A. Henderson

    Class of 1956

    • Chairman and CEO, Cummins Engine Company (1994–1999)
    • Director of AT&T (1999–2007)
    • Chair, Princeton University Board of Trustees (1986–1992)

  • J. Robert Hillier

    Class of 1959

    • Architect; founding partner, Studio Hillier and The Hillier Group (1966–2009)
    • Designer, Forbes College Annex and Olden House

  • David Huebner

    Class of 1982

    • Lawyer; Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa (2009–2014)

  • Andrew David Hurwitz

    Class of 1968

    • Justice, Arizona Supreme Court (2003–2012)
    • Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2012–present)

  • Gary King

    Class of 1979

    • Chair, Princetoniana Committee (2015–2017)
    • Award for Service to Princeton (2016)
    • President, Class of 1979 (2014–2019)

  • Christopher Loose

    Class of 2002

    • Chemical engineer; Executive Director, Yale Center for Biological and Interventional Technology

  • Jerome H. “Jay” Powell

    Class of 1975

    • Chair of the Federal Reserve (2018–2026)

  • Taylor W. Reveley III

    Class of 1965

    • Dean, William & Mary Law School (1998–2007)
    • President, College of William & Mary (2008–2018)
    • Emeritus Trustee, Princeton University

  • Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers

    Class of 1987

    • Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

  • Neil L. Rudenstine

    Class of 1956

    • Provost, Princeton University (1977–1988)
    • President, Harvard University (1991–2001)

  • Joseph Sailer, Jr.

    Class of 1928

    • Dive-bomber ace of Guadalcanal, killed in action in 1942

  • George P. Shultz

    Class of 1942

    • Secretary of Labor (1969–1970)
    • Director, Office of Management and Budget (1970–1972)
    • Secretary of the Treasury (1972–1974)
    • Secretary of State (1982–1989)

  • Adlai E. Stevenson II

    Class of 1922

    • Governor of Illinois (1949–1953)
    • Democratic presidential nominee (1952, 1956)
    • Ambassador to the United Nations (1961–1965)

  • Robert Venturi

    Class of 1947

    • Architect; founding principal, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates
    • Designer, Wu Hall and the Frist Campus Center renovation

  • G. Mennen Williams

    Class of 1933

    • Governor of Michigan (1949–1961)
    • Chief Justice of Michigan (1983–1987)

  • Sir Gordon Ying-Sheung Wu

    Class of 1958

    • Philanthropist and developer; Knight Commander
    • Chairman, Hopewell Holdings
    • Trustee of Princeton University

Eating club firsts

  • Zackory Burns

    Class of 2010

    • First president of a Princeton eating club to openly identify as LGBTQIA+

  • Leslie Brooks Bennett, Sharon Keld and Leslie Ambrose

    Class of 1980

    • First all-female president, vice president and treasurer of a Princeton eating club