One of the first questions tourists usually ask when they poke their heads into one of the coveted historic rooms on the University of Virginia’s central Lawn is “Does the fireplace work?”
And then: “Are you allowed to use it?”
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In the past, people often laughed when they heard “yes.”
But this year, for the first time in nearly 200 years, U-Va. officials banned fires in the fireplaces. During inspections after a roof restoration project, workers found damage to the mortar and lining of the chimneys, and officials told students in the 106 rooms with fireplaces that they would not be allowed to use them.
The rooms are connected by wooden roof and floor structures with no sprinklers, said Michael Merriam, associate director of maintenance.
“A fire in one could quickly spread to another,” Merriam said, adding that although there is a primary concern for student safety, “there’s also a very large concern that we don’t endanger an architectural treasure.”
“I was very disappointed. It was something I was really looking forward to using,” said senior Matt Cofer, who lives in one of the rooms, which often have a rocking chair and a small pile of wood by the door. One of his best memories is of hanging out in a friend’s room during a blizzard, watching the fire while snow fell.
School officials are trying to decide what to do next. It could cost $1 million to $3 million to repair the cracked chimney linings and mortar to ensure that heat from the fires doesn’t spread to the wood structure outside the chimneys, Merriam said. Adding a sprinkler system would cost significantly more.
At a recent board meeting, one board member said it was “bordering on ludicrous” to have fireplaces and asked whether they would be limiting the hours when students could duel or graze their horses on the Lawn. But others jumped in to defend the tradition.
“I think every university has something they do that makes other universities cringe that they do because of the history behind it,” said Mark Briggs, the chief risk officer for Ohio State University.
The debate matters not only to students but also to people who care about Thomas Jefferson’s legacy at the flagship public university. Jefferson, who designed the school that is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, envisioned a place where learning was not limited to the classroom, where students and faculty lived side by side, where people would gather for philosophical debates over dinner or discuss books by the fireside.
Banning fires could chip away at that, Cofer said, “turning the Lawn more into a museum or a place that doesn’t have as much meaning and connection to the past.”
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Hundreds of students compete to spend their senior year in one of the 54 rooms on the Lawn, a grassy, idyllic expanse at the heart of campus lined with white columns and stately brick buildings. A committee of students chooses the winners, based on their grades, their contributions to the school, and the three essays they write in their applications, said Reedy Swanson, a senior from Knoxville who is head Lawn resident this year. It’s considered a top honor.
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