Theodate had chosen the format of a village to reflect her concept of the school as a microcosm. Each boy was to have a participatory role in the school's governance and maintenance to prepare him for future community involvement and leadership. She chose an English style for its symbolic power to evoke American respect for the English as mentors in diplomacy, manners, and taste. She also felt that an English idiom would best inspire strong affection for the school. It would be her architecture itself, in additional to her educational program, which would foster school spirit and loyalty.

That the best loved schools were English - the quadrangles of Oxford and Cambridge with their varied chimneys reaching skywards, their tablets, and symbolic devices - was a common idea at the time. They represented conservative tradition and moral rectitude; their Gothic style was associated with Christian virtues. Given that an environment can have a positive influence on one's development, how better, some thought, to fortify students against the soul-crushing materialism of the modern industrialized world than to succumb to Oxbridge influence in the choice of style.¹

Ten years into the new century, Ralph A. Cram, an architect much admired by Theodate, chose Collegiate Gothic for Princeton's Graduate College quadrangle and soaring tower. And while Theodate was creating Avon, James Gamble Rogers was designing the Harkness Memorial Quadrangle at Yale in this same style with its proliferation of gables, dormers, and oriels. Rogers imitated not only the Tudor Gothic of English colleges, but also their advanced age. Modern tools and building methods were used to create a picturesque effect. Pitched roofs, supported by steel framing, were covered with asphalt over which were laid terra-cotta tiles, glazed in various colors, chipped on the edges, and roughed on the surface to promote the growth of moss. Stone steps were artificially worn down with acid and dung. Modern tools resurfaced golden-brown, seam-faced granite blocks to produce texture. And old bricks, carefully chosen for their color, were sandblasted to soften the surface - all in pursuit of a picturesque effect that looked authentic. Of course, Theodate visited to inspect the methods of construction.²

Theodate eschewed modern construction techniques. If her school was going to look like a timeworn English village, then she wished to use traditional building methods, and these she needed to study. She had another reason to focus on English vernacular architecture. Although she had Avon's plot plan and at least three colored perspective drawings by the spring of 1920, elevations probably did not yet exist for most of the individual buildings.³ For inspiration she had her collection of postcards of English houses and a growing library on English vernacular architecture - amply-illustrated books, which, written from an Arts and Crafts point of view, emphasized traditional construction techniques.⁴

One volume she found especially interesting was Small Country Houses of To-Day, edited by Lawrence Weaver of Country Life.⁵ It has plans, photographs, and short descriptions of houses by major contemporary Arts and Crafts architects, including C.F. Voysey, W. R. Lethaby, Ernest Barnsley, M. H. Baillie Scott, and E. Guy Dawber. In addition there are two houses by Edwin Lutyens, and Philip Webb's Red House (1859) for William Morris, which had started the revival of the vernacular tradition in England. The book praised natural settings, plans determined wholly by the site and the needs of the occupants, elevations growing simply and reasonably out of these plans, and the use of local materials for walls and roofing. Interiors had whitewashed walls set off by oak flooring, doors, and exposed beams. Beauty was seen to consist in line, proportion, texture, and craftsmanship. A cardinal sin was the indulgence in ornament for ornament's sake.

In Small Country Houses of To-Day [c. 1910] Theodate singled out Long Copse (1897) in Ewhurst, Surrey, a cottage designed by Alfred Powell (today known better for his pottery than his architecture). She penciled her initials after its entry in the table of contents, following her habit of marking a statement or name she wished to remember. The painter G. F. Watts had thought Long Copse the most beautiful house in Surrey. Powell had in fact reconstructed an existing cottage, adding a kitchen wing. Nestled on the slope of a hill, Long Copse curled its bent plan around a garden. Massive walls of local golden sandstone, punctured by casement windows, supported steep-pitched, dormered roofs. Straight lines were avoided in the roofline by choosing trees with curving trunks for the roof principals or trusses. While the main wing was thatched, local Horsham stone was chosen for the roof of the addition. Weaver, the editor, called attention to the organic appearance of this cottage-to its harmony with its site-in describing the properties of the Horsham stone used as slate. "There is a tenderness," he wrote, "about the way the moss and willow weed grow on this stone roof that seems Nature's benediction of the use of local things."⁶

These are effects Theodate would try to achieve at Avon. Yet there was also another aspect to the creation of Long Copse which caught Theodate's attention. Following the medieval custom, the architect supervised the construction. There was no middleman, no building contractor. Powell was someone from whom she might learn traditional construction methods.

Theodate decided that a trip to England to study English domestic architecture was in order. On June 21, 1920, she wrote to the executive secretary of the American Institute of Architecture in Washington asking for a general letter of introduction to English architects, especially singling out the designer of Long Copse:

I expect to spend the summer in England making architectural studies and I am anxious to meet and consult with certain English architects. I am writing therefore to ask you to be kind enough to give me an open letter of introduction, stating that I am a member of the AIA, and if you know him personally, a note of introduction to Mr. Alfred Powell, whom I especially wish to consult.⁷

Replying immediately, the secretary offered to send Theodate official letters to Alfred Powell or to any of the officers of the R.I.B.A., and suggested that she write to Mr. Whitaker, the editor of the AIA Journal, who, being acquainted with many English architects, would give her personal notes of introduction.

The Riddles sailed on the Celtic to Southampton where they had arranged to meet an English tutor to take charge of Donald and Paul who were now fourteen. Together they visited some of the great cathedrals at Salisbury, York, and Winchester, as well as the romantic ruin of Kenilworth Castle. The boys and their tutor then continued to the continent, Theodate remaining in England to focus her thoughts on domestic architecture and traditional building methods.⁸ It was the Cotswolds, an area lying mainly in Gloucestershire which she knew well, that drew her attention. A distinct architectural style known as "Cotswold vernacular" had developed in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Buildings were constructed from a local limestone known as oolite, or eggstone, which takes on a rich warm color as it mellows with age. Characteristic features are steep-pitched, slate-covered roofs studded with gabled dormer windows. Bay windows often grace the ground floor. The walls are very thick, but, because the stone is porous, they are protected from the rain not only by the eaves but also by drip moldings placed over the doors and windows. The picturesque towns and villages of the Cotswolds had likewise drawn those English architects interested in arts and crafts.

The heyday of the Arts and Crafts movement in England was long past; World War I signaled its demise. Those who had first gathered around William Morris and Norman Shaw in London - in the 1880s as members of St. George's Art Society, the Art Workers' Guild, and the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings - had, following Morris's dream espoused in News from Nowhere, migrated to the countryside at the turn of the century. They were drawn to the Cotswolds, an area of hills or wolds with villages and towns nestled in the valleys. In the late Middle Ages, prosperous from raising sheep, the inhabitants of the Cotswolds erected sturdy buildings from the limestone found in the hills. In the eighteenth century the wool trade gave way to silk weaving, which in turn was supplanted by farming. By the end of the nineteenth century the Cotswolds were in an economic decline that was halted, not by some new manufacture, but by an influx of architects, artists, and writers followed by fashionable summer people.⁹

C.R. Ashbee moved his Guild of Handicraft, which consisted of about fifty craftsmen plus their families, to Chipping Campden in 1902. Although the guild disbanded for economic reasons five years later, some members stayed on. Earlier, after the failure in 1892 of their furniture making cooperative, Kenton and Company, Ernest Gimson and Sidney and Ernest Barnsley had established another workshop and showroom in Daneway House, a fourteenth-century manor near the village of Sapperton. In Sapperton the three partners built their houses. Ernest Barnsley created Upper Dorval House by adding two wings to an existing cottage; his brother Sidney also extended a cottage which he called Beechanger; while Gimson built a thatch roofed cottage with numerous dormer windows.¹⁰ In 1907 these three architect-craftsmen were joined by Norman Jewson, who married Ernest Barnsley's daughter Mary.

By the time of Theodate's Cotswold visit in 1920, Gimson, who had clung tenaciously to the old building methods, was dead.¹¹ However, in 1909, Ernest Barnsley had started Rodmarton Manor, a long multi-gabled country house near Cirencester, for the Hon. Claud Biddulph, a London-based banker. Construction, after having been interrupted by the War, was again in full progress.¹² In an entry of his 1914 journal, C.R. Ashbee remarked of Rodmarton that the English Arts and Crafts Movement was at its best here, as were the vanishing traditions of the Cotswolds.¹³ Indeed, it was the last stone manor house in which old construction methods were used, and so could well have been the contemporary example behind Theodate's insistence on using such techniques at Avon. Local materials and labor were used exclusively - the stone and slate being quarried nearby and the oak used for roof timbers, exposed beams, floors, and furniture cut on the estate. All was fabricated by hand. Even planks were sawn in a pit, the time-saving circular saw being banished.¹⁴ The carpenters and joiners made the furniture from designs furnished by Sidney Barnsley. The local blacksmith provided all the ironwork for the house, even supplying some inkwells. Although costly and laborious, this type of designer-craftsman collaboration strongly appealed to Theodate. And the details are terrific. For example, the leadwork on gutters and down pipes have brackets embossed with owls and rabbits. There are also the type of idiosyncrasies Theodate so much admired, such as the verses, taken from Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, carved crisply on the front of the house.

Alfred Powell had built himself a cottage in the village near the manor. He painted a series of ceramic plates for the Biddulfs with their coats of arms and images of places they knew, and he furnished tapestries for some of their chairs. He was also on close terms with the Barnsley brothers, his friendship reaching back to 1887 when both he and Ernest had been apprenticed to the architect John D. Sedding in London.¹⁵

One learns that Theodate visited Alfred Powell from, of all things, his thank you note for her pumpkin pie recipe. In his note he mentions their tour of Cotswold buildings and assures her that he will send an article about English building practices.¹⁶ It is hard to imagine that Powell, a contributor to the house, did not show Theodate Rodmarton. One can only speculate that she visited Bedales School in Petersfield, Hampshire, where Powell's brother, Oswald, taught. Not only would she have been interested in its progressive curriculum that emphasized learning crafts, but also in the school's buildings designed by Ernest Gimson.¹⁷

On a subsequent trip to England Theodate made some notes and sketches with references to the Cotswold villages of Broadway, Bibury, and Burford, as well as to Salisbury, Wilton, and Winchester.¹⁸ Many refer to the buildings being planned on Avon's village green, including the library, cloister, and chapel with its bell tower; and they indicate that Theodate was thinking of all aspects of design at once (Fig.48). There are references to the chapel pews, a finial of a boy holding a book for the library, and an octagonal bell tower based on one at Wilton with a circular staircase to be attached to one corner of the tower. Some of the notes refer to advice she received from Alfred Powell - information she collected on such things as types of mortar, the advisability of bedding slate in cement, stains for oak, and a method to break down the corners of square headed bolts by striking them while hot. Other notes refer to Gordon Russell who, with his brother, was the owner of the most luxurious of the old inns in Broadway, the Lygon Arms, where the Riddles stayed. As a designer of furniture, he, too, was able to give Theodate helpful hints.¹⁹

Sir Gordon Russell may have introduced her to Charles Paget Wade (1883-1956), an Arts and Crafts architect who lived a stone's throw from Broadway at Snowshill Manor. The eccentric Mr. Wade had filled his house, acquired in 1919, with his collection of examples of craftsmanship, including tools, musical instruments, and toys purchased as records of vanishing handicrafts. He had also constructed a model Cotswold village that he placed in his garden. Earlier he had worked for several years as a draftsman for Raymond Unwin, architect to the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, where he designed some cottages around central gardens at Asmuns Place. He had also provided drawings, including picturesque groupings of houses around semi-enclosed areas, for Unwin's Town Planning in Practice (London, 1909), which was so popular that by 1920 it was in it's seventh edition (Fig.49).²⁰ These village views may well have inspired Theodate's plan for Avon, or at least her ideas ran along a parallel track.

Whether or not Theodate met Charles Wade or knew Town Planning in Practice, she must have been aware of the well-published Garden City concepts of Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker as realized at New Earswick (1901), a model village; Letchworth (1903), the first Garden City; and Hampstead Garden Suburb (1905-7). Unwin and Parker had turned to the time-honored village structure believing that public buildings placed around a green foster close-knit social relationships and community spirit. Clusters of traditional houses partially enclose open spaces that become safe play areas. They even created some housing units for single workers in quadrangles. The popularity of the English Garden City spread to other countries before peaking with the advent of World War I. In Queens, New York, Grosvenor Atterbury created the master plan for Forest Hills Garden (1909-1912), where Tudor houses face meandering streets and the station square is surrounded by buildings in a Germanic medieval style. The Garden City combination of village green, other semi-enclosed areas, houses in an English vernacular tradition, and picturesque shops is not unrelated to Theodate's plan for Avon Old Farms.

In the spring of 1921 the construction of Avon finally began with the clearing of land by teams of oxen. Understanding the value of publicity, Theodate saw to it that two comprehensive articles appeared in New York's Evening Sun and the Hartford Courant. They described Avon's setting and its educational program and purpose, and printed perspective views of the school.²¹ Leland Lyon, her associate, freed her by producing plans and elevations from her ideas and sketches. At such a time, could she simply pack up and leave for Argentina for an extended period?

John Riddle had applied for a diplomatic post and was appointed in November of 1921 ambassador to Argentina. The Riddles waited to set sail until mid-January, after work at Avon had come to a halt for the winter. It did not take Theodate long to discover that she did not have the temperament for an ambassador's wife. She complained to Anna Cowles from the Plaza Hotel in Buenos Aires that she had practically nothing to do. There she was the honorary president of both the Patriotic Society of American Women, which met once a month, and the Columbia Club, which met twice a month. The latter consisted of twenty-five members who prepared and read papers on literary and artistic subjects, one on ancient glass so boring that it almost put her to sleep. Between social obligations she read until her eyes ached and played bridge. Her attempts at learning Spanish were a bust.

She was quite grateful, therefore, to find a real excuse to return five months later, and hence began a clash of careers that might have wrecked their marriage. The men's Roosevelt Memorial Association offered the women's group $150,000 if they could take over part of the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace wing for their displays and offices. Important changes had to be made to the plans, and so Theodate sailed home alone in June.

As fate would have it, the ship's rudder broke, the ship turning in circles and nearly foundering on its return. Theodate claimed that she was so shattered by yet another accident at sea, which caused heart tremors and sleeplessness, that she could not possibly contemplate returning to South America. To exempt her from having to resume the tedious duties of a diplomat's wife, her doctor wrote to the State Department claiming that she was emotionally unstable and that another sea voyage might produce a mental collapse.²² John Riddle returned on leave for three months, leaving ten days before the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace on October 27, 1923. Theodate strongly regretted that he was not there in her moment of glory. After the rousing "Battle Hymn of the Republic," President Garfield spoke, followed by Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's son. Then the president of the Woman's Roosevelt Memorial Association praised Theodate who stood up, "blushing furiously under her coat of paint," she wrote to her sister-in-law. Two years later, with a new administration in Washington, John Riddle resigned his post reluctantly, giving up his career in government.

In the meantime, at Avon construction proceeded until the Depression suspended work during 1929-30. The Tidewater Construction Company, which had supervised Westover, was in charge of a labor force that, with the building of the quadrangle in 1925, swelled to 550 workers. Non-union workers were hired because they would forego modern construction methods for those advocated by Theodate.

When in residence at Hill-Stead, Theodate arrived regularly at the site in her chauffeur-driven, open yellow Stutz and stayed from two to eight hours. Although she was only about five feet two inches tall, she was a formidable sight in the outfit she had designed for herself (Fig.50). The author, Mina Curtiss, described her thus:

Her appearance itself was memorable. Mrs. Riddle was rather tall, and large-bosomed in a pouter-pigeonish sort of way. Her costume seemed to symbolize an inner conflict between the male and female aspects of her nature, a conflict of which I am sure she was unaware. She was clad in some sort of brown leather knickerbockers, and above these rather bloomerlike pants she wore a very delicate made-in-France looking blouse with val lace inserted in narrow strips. On her commanding bosom a sky blue enamel watch hung from a jeweled butterfly pin.²³

The first buildings to be erected were the station house, which lies beyond the school entrance on the once active Canal Line of the New Haven Railroad, and a group of structures at the entrance, including a water tower, a forge, a wheelwright's, and a carpentry shop (Fig.51). The station house, because it could be used as a depository for supplies, was the first completed (Fig.52).²⁴ Here the workmen built in local red Triassic sandstone that was quarried on the property. Half a dozen English craftsmen, brought over from the Cotswolds, roofed the station house in slate.²⁵ The shape of the gablet roof is particularly extraordinary with its lateral sides extending almost to the ground. One can still find examples of similar catslide roofs in the English countryside, albeit nothing quite so picturesque.

No ridgepoles were used here or in the other roofs, following old English custom (Fig.53). Split oak saplings, pinned horizontally to the oak rafters, supported the slate that was embedded in cement mortar. The lack of a ridgepole produces a gentle sag. But Theodate went further, producing eaves that curl upwards by forcing a half slate under the battens at each end of the roof.²⁶ What Theodate wished to avoid at all costs were straight lines. She forbid the use of a plumb line or level except in the construction of the water tower, and legend has it that many a level disappeared, buried hastily in the wall at the approach of this woman who could suddenly turn into a termagant.

Theodate originally planned to build in brick - long, dark red bricks, approximately the size of old English bricks.²⁷ The first five feet of the tall cylindrical water tower are of red sandstone, which runs gradually into brick of approximately the same color (Figs.2, 51). The mortar was mixed with red sand to increase the mellow effect of the rich red. The forge, with its two massive chimneys topped by chimney pots, emerges from the water tower. It also has a base of uneven sandstone blocks that casually run into brick to create a marvelous sense of texture. Stone blocks, reinforcing the corners and the two chimneys, add to this effect. Theodate's concern for obtaining her desired color effect can be seen in her construction notes for the forge roof. The slates were supposed to be a clear red color, but a green vein ran through many. She used the latter only where they would not be seen. The forge provided all of the hardware for the buildings.

A change to a tile roof and half-timber frame occurs in the wheelwright shop that angles out from the forge. The carpentry shop, just beyond the forge, looks as if it had been transplanted from an English village (Fig.54).²⁸ It too is a half-timber structure but with its sections filled with brick nogging in multiple patterns. Moreover, its high-pitched, red tile roof with a hipped end and little gablet is the type found on old half-timbered houses in Sussex and Surrey, areas Theodate knew well. The porch of the brick house, opposite the carpentry shop, is also half-timbered with hand-hewn beams and projecting pegs that are both functional and decorative (Figs.55, 56).²⁹ American as well as English architects were creating half-timbered houses with porches, massive chimneys attached to the exterior walls, and gablet roofs.³⁰ But they were not as insistent on the use of both local materials and old tools as Theodate.

When Theodate realized that the red sandstone quarried on her Avon property would be less costly than brick, she decided to construct the majority of the remaining buildings in that material.³¹ The quarry, which was opened in 1922, was manned by Italians who dressed the stones on wooden benches in a cutting shed. Their unevenness was removed with a point and the surface finished with a peen hammer, a traditional English method used in Worcestershire. The remaining roofs are of red slate that was split by hand in varying lengths.

The quadrangle's massive entrance tower is reminiscent of fourteenth-century castle gateways minus their battlements. One might also compare it to the midfifteenth-century gate house tower of St. Cross Hospital in Winchester, which Theodate photographed (Figs.1, 57). Yet Avon's tower, which is otherwise plain, is distinguished by a large relief, designed probably by Lee Lawrie in accordance with Theodate's concept.³² Its scene states visually the school's goals for the students - the learning of self-reliance and self-esteem through farm work and self-governance in a village community (Figs.58, 59). Framed by two trees with interlaced branches, two boys (taken from a photograph of Theodate's two wards) stride forward, one with a team of oxen and a plow, the other with a workhorse and scythe. Each boy supports a single banner with the school motto, "Aspirando et Perseverando," represented by a winged beaver between them.³³ Behind grazing livestock, the village stands as Theodate had conceived it, with the chapel and its own massive tower, the seat of student government, dead center. That the arched entrance with its relief is not centered is typical of Theodate's avoidance of symmetry, but it is balanced visually by a narrow window on the left and wider side. However, it is the plan that determines the exterior. Behind the window lies the porter's lodge with its tiny fireplace, a feature found in the Beaufort gateway at St. Cross Hospital. A spiral staircase to the right of the entrance leads up to the second- and third-floor dormitories that flank the tower on either side. A long sloping red slate roof, opened by dormers, conceals the third story and visually diminishes the height so that the general effect is of strength that is not overbearing - a quality Theodate wished to instill in the Avon students. The long sloping roof is a unifying feature that ties the dormitories to the masters' cottages at the corners.

The houses of the headmaster and dean extend out from behind the quadrangle to face the village green (Figs.60, 61).³⁴ The change from brick to stone led to a change in style. These houses are similar to the golden limestone cottages in the Cotswolds. Like the Cotswold houses, there are no eaves gutter or downspout to carry off rain, the water runs directly off the roof to be deterred, somewhat, by drip moldings over the doors and windows. The drip moldings end in diamond shapes, a decorative feature occurring in some of the vernacular buildings in Broadway and in a few adjoining Cotswold villages. Indeed, Theodate photographed a house with such a drip molding (Fig.62).³⁵

She lavished individual touches, so characteristic of an Arts and Crafts sensibility, on these two houses. Carlyle's saying, "The degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct measure of the man," is carved in capital letters above the drip molding over the office entrance to the headmaster's house (Fig.63). Above the door Theodate added a sundial with verses she probably wrote, in as much as they are followed by her mysterious symbol:

With thy warm breath
Dispel the heaven's cool clouds
That hide thee from my sight
With thy golden rays
Smite me thou restless one
And I'll record thy flight
From thy last red flare on the hills
Filling a thought to comfort me
Thru the night. (Fig.11).

The winged beaver hovers above on the gable's finial.³⁶

The bank, somewhat incongruous as a Doric structure in red sandstone, was finished in 1926; the adjoining refectory followed on its heels (Fig.64).

The refectory, built between 1926 and 1929, benefited from the change from brick to stone, becoming more massive and acquiring sloping buttresses to help support the thrust of the arched braces within (Figs.65, 66). Crownposts, sustaining an upper tier with a clerestory, emerge from the apex of these hand-hewn oak beams, which culminate in spiral flourishes on top of sandstone corbels.³⁷ She adorned the walls with tapestries and portraits of her ancestors, and placed pewter candlesticks on the trestle tables. In spirit, the refectory recalls the great halls Theodate had seen in England.

Theodate was hard pressed to open the school before the refectory was finished. As soon as the walls of the school buildings began to emerge from their foundations, taxes began to increase proportionately. The property assessment was raised to $850,000, the taxes to $14,000, by 1925 when the buildings were three-fourths completed. Harris Whittemore, who oversaw Avon's financial matters, managed to negotiate a large reduction with the town tax authorities, represented by the cigar-chomping selectman, Joseph Alsop. Theodate had already had a run-in with Alsop when he had claimed that she was hiring laborers away from their local employers with higher wages.

At a special meeting called at Hill-Stead on September 14, 1925, the name of Avon's foundation, the Alfred Atmore Pope Foundation, was changed to the Pope-Brooks Foundation to include her mother's maiden name. The Articles of the Association were amended to limit the powers of the foundation to the creation, maintenance, and management of the school. And it was decided that Avon must open in September 1927. Theodate chose Stephen Cabot, the former headmaster of St. George's in Newport, to act as executive regent of Avon for one year to help select a headmaster and faculty. Cabot urged Theodate to form a separate corporation for Avon, apart from the Pope-Brooks Foundation. She saw this as a move to diminish her control.

At another special meeting held at Hill-Stead on September 29, 1926, she requested an amendment to the Certificate of Incorporation which would give her a check on the power held by the Board of Directors as a whole. She would retain power "to initiate and execute appropriate measures or regulations pertaining to the educational policies of Avon," as well as to oversee its internal management, "including the selection, appointment and dismissal of the officers." It was true that a unanimous vote by all the directors could overrule the veto of the Founder, as Theodate called herself; but for the first ten years she had the right to select and appoint the members of the Board of Directors. Moreover, she could also request their resignations. Her amendment did not receive unanimous approval, and she rejected the creation of a separate corporation.³⁸ She could not picture herself in the years to come sitting by the fireside having lost control of the school to which she had devoted so much creative energy, not to mention a large part of her inheritance. This demand for total control would ultimately be the school's undoing.

Forced for tax reasons to open in 1927, Avon was far from ready. After her mother's death, Theodate had divided the oblong quadrangle, planned in 1918, in two, to be named after each parent. By 1923, she had decided that she would add a junior college to her boys preparatory school, the Brooks quadrangle serving the college. The premature opening meant not only that plans for the college were postponed, but also that some of the most important buildings were put on hold. These included the Brooks quadrangle and the complex from the library to the gatehouse on the far side of the green, which were so important to Theodate's concept of the school as a village community. (Figs.43, 44).

Francis Froelicher, who had been headmaster of a country day school and president of the Progressive Education Association of America ,was chosen headmaster - or provost, as he was called. By the spring of 1927, he had assembled a group of experienced and enthusiastic teachers interested in progressive education. At a faculty meeting held on September 26th, the evening before the school opened, Theodate gave some general instructions, urging an interdisciplinary approach in the curriculum and the use of library books rather than textbooks. With the exception of polo, sports would be confined to intramural games and competitions so as not to be too distracting. Theodate then surprisingly left the school, which opened with approximately fifty students, wanting the staff to work out her ideas on their own. The Riddles sailed for Europe in December, hoping to take advantage of the warmer climate in Italy.