Office of the President

The President's Home

The President’s House at Wofford

While not one of the original homes on campus, the President’s House has been a fixture on campus since 1911.  Located just steps from Main Building and between the Kilgo-Clinkscales House and DuPré House, the current President’s House has been home to seven Wofford first families. 

In the college’s earliest years, most faculty lived on campus. As the number of faculty grew, however, housing options remained constant. In 1911, Professor Coleman B. Waller, a member of the class of 1892 who had earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at Vanderbilt University, reached an agreement with the college to build a new house on campus. Waller would pay part of the cost of building the house, but the college could at its discretion repay him and assume control of the house. So, with that unusual arrangement, the future President’s House was constructed. 

The Wallers remained in that home until 1942. At that time, President Henry Nelson Snyder retired, and Dr. Walter K. Greene, Wofford Class of 1903, was elected president. Greene became the first Wofford president to live in the Waller House. Subsequently, presidents Gaines, Marsh, Hardin, Lesesne and Dunlap lived in the house, and now President Nayef Samhat lives in the home with his wife Prema and their beagle, Ava. Their children, grandchildren and friends visit frequently, and the Samhats are knowns for welcoming faculty, staff and students into their home throughout the year.  

The house is much grander than it was when Dr. Waller built it in 1911 but remains a perfect complement to the older structures on either side of it. Renovations to the house in the early 2000s enlarged the front porch, added central heating and air conditioning, and updated some of the upstairs windows to match the neighboring houses. That renovation also modernized the kitchen, which allows it to be used for entertaining and the president’s family’s daily use, as well as for more casual meetings. Major funding for these essential renovations came from longtime Wofford friends Paula Black Baker and Marianna Black Habisreutinger of Spartanburg, in memory of their mother Anna Maybry Black. Trustee Roger Milliken also provided funding for the project, and Kindel Furniture Company of Grand Rapids, Mich., contributed many of the furnishings in the downstairs area.

Wofford’s original President’s House was home to William Wightman and A.M. Shipp, who were famous for their warm hospitality. After the Clinchfield Railroad built tracks close to the house, the trench the railroad dug undermined the house. It became unsafe and had to be demolished in the mid-1920s. The site was close to the intersection of Memorial Drive and College Drive. Presidents James Carlisle and Henry Nelson Snyder chose to live in the houses the occupied while members of the faculty. Both of those houses are still standing.