Reclaimed History: Student Project Incorporates Material From Clayton University Center at Packer Hall

Wooden beams that for 157 years provided structural support within the stone walls of the Clayton University Center at Packer Hall have become part of a centerpiece project in The Lehigh Pub at the newly renovated building.

The renovation began in 2023, during which some of the original support beams were removed from the building and some trees were cut down on the UC property. A group of four design students were recruited to build two tables for the pub using the original beams and lumber from the trees.

“As students, they will now be attached to the institution in a different way, because they are leaving something they made behind … It is both a privilege, and at the same time a legacy, to work on these types of projects,” said Brian Slocum, director of Lehigh’s Design Labs.

In addition to the tables, Slocum and his team have been tasked with restoring the bell from the Clayton University Center’s iconic bell tower. Cast in 1866 at the Meneely Bell Foundry in West Troy, N.Y., the bell will be located at the South Entrance near the new Club Hub in front of a portrait of Lehigh founder Asa Packer, which is carved into acrylic and edge lit by LED lights. The portrait was designed by Benjamin Bolan ’26.

“How can we use those materials in ways that will both fit with the pub space, the design they have going on in there, and something that’s unique to the space?” Hackenmueller said. “The tables were meant to be focal points within each room that they were in.”

The students wanted the private dining room table, which incorporates the old structural support beams, to have a classic design since it would likely be used by visitors reserving the space for meetings. Students also wanted the table to reflect the heritage of the Clayton UC.

The dining table will have four thick legs made from the purlin beam and a butcher block-style table top engraved with elements of Lehigh’s rising sun insignia. The table also pays homage to Bethlehem Steel with bronze powder-coated steel included in the legs.

Its butcher block table top is made from pieces of rafters that were once in the UC, Oatman said. Students removed nails from the wood and filled the holes with resin.

“It will allow you to see the history right on top of the table as you’re sitting at it,” said Oatman, who is a product design major.

Designing and constructing the tables allowed Oatman to practice the skills she learned at Lehigh. During her time at Lehigh, the Clayton UC was only open for one semester before it closed for renovations, but Oatman said the building has left a lasting impression on her, especially after working on the design project.

“I didn’t expect to have a legacy piece here at Lehigh. I never knew I’d feel so connected to a school,” Oatman said. “Seeing these big rafters, it shows the amount of history around this campus and things you maybe didn’t know were there and maybe never appreciated before.”

For the banquette table, students wanted to make something very Lehigh-centric. They landed on a design that uses Lehigh’s shield at the front and the school’s initials, “LU,” on both sides as support for the table top. The banquette table is made entirely of lumber from trees on the UC site.

“So often, especially as a design student, you conceptualize things, but you don’t always get to see them into the final stage,” Hackenmueller said. “The idea of having these tables in a public space in the school that people can interact with and see, and it’s going to be there for however long the pub is around, is really cool.”

Litchfield’s favorite aspect of the project was using beams that came right from the building.

“I think it’s unique that we are not just hiring some design team to do it,” he said. “It’s student-driven and it's very personalized toward the school, which I like.”

The biggest challenge was pulling the original nails from the wood and dealing with dry rot, a type of wood-decaying fungus that feeds on timber and can make it brittle.

“We have solutions for all of it, which is physical labor for pulling the nails and filling any cracks and weaknesses with epoxy,” Litchfield said.

The Bell

Although Slocum and his team have plenty of experience with furniture design, restoring the bell was a first and new kind of project for them. At the end of August, on what Slocum jokes must have been the hottest day of the year, he and Mike Moore ’12, manager of the Design Labs, climbed to the top of the Clayton UC bell tower to see the condition of the bell.

The bell was still supported by the original wooden beams, which were in pretty bad condition, Slocum said. The bell was also caked in bird and bat droppings.

The base of the bronze bell is 2-and-a-half-feet-wide and it weighs between 250 lbs to 300 lbs, Slocum said.

They managed to load the bell into the back of Slocum’s pickup truck and take it to Building C on the Mountaintop Campus where it spent the next several months being restored. The bell was polished to remove most of the weathered oxidation and the iron supports and yoke were sandblasted and powder coated to prevent future rusting. Some of the original support beams were sealed and turned into a base for the bell to sit on.

Joe Klocek ’98, Lehigh’s director of planning, design and construction, isn’t sure when the bell was last rung. At some point, Lehigh switched to an electronic speaker that played a bell sound every 15 minutes and once on the hour between 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

There used to be an “automatic clanger” that was used to ring the bell, though Klocek says there are no plans to start using that mechanism again.

Before being mounted in the Clayton UC bell tower, the bell was originally in Christmas-Saucon Hall, which had been a Moravian Church, according to a March 16, 1894 edition of The Brown and White.

As of 1894, the bell still rang “it’s loud, unheeded summons to meals, to the evening study hour and, at half-past-nine, to bed,” the article says.

An article published on March 6, 1908 noted that “it has been long years” since the bell was rung, though upperclassmen “still remember when they could set their watches by the 9:30 bell which rang every evening, so prompt was Jim with the rope.”

That Brown and White article was likely referring to James A. “Jim” Myers who was a university janitor for 46 years.

A New Jersey native and civil war veteran, Myers came to Lehigh in 1886 to help build Packer Hall and reportedly drove the first stake in laying out the site for the new building, according to “Looking Back: A Lehigh Scrapbook” by Rita M. Plotnicki.

Myers rang the bell for classes and study hours, and was the faculty messenger. He collected attendance slips at chapel and other mandatory activities. He also “dealt with the aftermath of pranks,” such as the time students decorated the 1887 Christmas tree with “items necessary to please a freshman’s fancy,” according to the Scrapbook. It took Myers several hours to remove the tree from Packer chapel because it had been wired into place.

Slocum said the bell provides a tangible symbol of Lehigh’s history that can serve as a touchstone for the Lehigh community to connect with the past.

“Seeing the date, 1866, cast into the side of the bell and knowing that it was part of the very start of this place of higher learning, part of Asa Packer’s vision to build a legacy of education, it’s a really powerful symbol that can tie us all back to that original mission,” Slocum said. “While it won’t ring again, I do hope the students will come, touch it and connect with the history of Lehigh, and maybe, just maybe, hear echoes of the past.”