New Haven Independent

Architect Jennifer Stone (pictured) unveiled the plans for the additon to the Betts House on Prospect Street at last week’s City Plan Commission meeting.

The Betts House currently houses the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and the World Fellows Program. Stone told the commissioners the addition will be built just south and connected to Betts through a glazed arcade, harmonizing with the grand old 1868 mansion.

The chief architect on this project is none other than Robert A.M. Stern, who heads the Yale University School of Architecture.

Jennifer Stone was nervous because although she has been with Robert A. M. Stern Architects in New York for seven years, this was her very first solo performance before the Elm City commissioners. She needn’t have worried.

She spoke of how the new building, to be called the Greenberg Conference Center, needs to be added to the Betts House in order to accommodate the growing number of gatherings on the campus to which Yale’s increasingly prominent role as a global university has contributed. It will be built between the current building and the Leitner Family Observatory to south, and it will be operated by the university’s Office of International Affairs. It will help to attract important guests and gatherings. Stone said that not only Yale but the restaurants and other businesses of the city will benefit.

The commissioners, always concerned about parking, needn’t have been in this instance. No new parking is to be added because the conference center, Stone explained, will comfortably hold up to 80 people, but there will be no overnight accommodations. Attendees — housed elsewhere — will be brought to gatherings at the new center on small shuttle buses, the better to increase diplomatic conversation and decrease greenhouse gas. (Click here to read about Yale’s larger greening effort.)

As to the architecture, Stone said the building will rotate eastward, away from the street, so as to not compete with the grand façade of the Betts House. It will be in keeping with the general style of Prospect Street, in which 19th private residences, even after being turned to institutional use, remain set back on noble promontories at the end of deep green lawns.

“It’s of course going to be a modern building,” Stone explained, but there would be columns, arches and other features, such as detailing, including on the connector or arcade, that will echo that on the Betts building and its porch.

The commissioners approved the plans, but as they often do, attached some conditions. In this case, modest ones including to take care in the grading so that the houses on St. Ronan adjacent to the Betts property don’t suffer too much run-off. Architect Stone also needs to show the location of bike racks on her plan.

Afterwards, packing up her drawings out in the hall, she said, “It’s really an exciting project, but I’m sure glad this is over.”