Fensgate Dormitory

Fensgate Dormitory

In 1972, the college leased, and later purchased 534 Beacon Street for use as the Fensgate Dormitory.

Hotel Fensgate was built in 1923-1924. The 72-room apartment house had a restaurant downstairs famous for its steak and lobster menu.
During the late 1930s and 1940s, it also featured a small night club, the Satire Room (later renamed Café Society). In 1952, the club hosted the first Beaux Arte Ball, the highlight of the gay social season. The hotel manager disapproved of his lobby full of men dressed in chiffon and ladies in tuxedos, so the ball found another venue.
Hotel Fensgate also gave an early start to the career of legendary music entrepreneur George Wein. Wein started a music series, La Jazz Doux at the Satire Room, before gaining fame with his Storyville nightclub and record label, and founding the music festivals at Newport (Newport Jazz and Newport Folk).
The building would be used a dormitory and dining hall for Chandler School of Women (1961-1973), and briefly used for the same purpose by Boston University, before Emerson College moved-in.
In 1982, an early incarnation of the ProArts Consortium was housed in the Emerson dormitory at Fensgate. The inter-arts residency program, then called Art House, consisted of a director and 50 students from the BAC, MassArt, the SMFA, and Emerson College.
Emerson continued to operate Fensgate Dormitory until the mid-1990s.

1974

Emerson College Archives and Special Collections

Emerson College

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