At home in the middle of campus

For almost 80 years, IU presidents and their families have watched students walk to classes from the Bryan House porch.\nThey've watched seasons change and flower gardens bloom from the house on a hill, between two streams of the Jordan River.\nThe next IU president will probably enjoy the same view when classes resume in the fall.\nUntil then, the house, built in 1924, by IU president William Lowe Bryan and his wife, Charlotte, is without a permanent tenant.\nBut even during the times Bryan House hasn't been occupied by one of the six IU presidents who have lived there, "it's still (been) a warm, historic kind of house," said Elaine Finley, director of campus events.\nThe colonial revival-style house, modeled after Woodrow Wilson's home in Washington, D.C., has a full schedule of dinner parties, luncheons and meetings with interim IU president Gerald Bepko and his wife. The South Garden will play host to the traditional Senior Sendoff in May. And the house will get minor repairs and a new paint job in the coming weeks.\n"Being an old house, it's much easier to do repairs on it when no one is living here," Finley said.\nIU has grown around the house since it was built on the eastern edge of campus, making it one of only a few presidential homes in the country actually on a college campus.\nThe proximity to campus has been mostly a blessing, but there are exceptions.\nAfter former IU president Myles Brand fired Coach Bob Knight, a mob of students trampled the landscaping around the house and burned the president in effigy.\nBut a few months later, another group of students stopped by the house to sing Christmas carols.\nThey were surprised when Brand and his guest, John Mellencamp, met them at the door.\nQuite a few celebrities have signed Bryan Hall guest books -- including Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Eleanor Roosevelt and Jane Pauley.\nSince the Brands moved out in January, furniture and paintings that were in storage have been returned. The Brands, like first families before them, put personal touches into their home, but some features never change.\nThere's the 1915 T.C. Steele landscape painting in the living room and the grandfather clock, a gift of the Class of 1905. And there's the mirror that's probably seen the countenance of every IU president. The mirror in the entry hall of Bryan House belonged to IU's first president, Andrew Wylie.\nSince 1955 when William Lowe Bryan died in the home's library, living in the house has been one of the top perks of being IU's president. It comes with a maid, cook and gardener and is within walking distance of every building on campus.\nThe house has been vacant for remodelings and when IU president Joseph Lee Sutton chose not to live in the house from 1968 to 1971.\nIn 1971, two students and their son were asked to stay at the Bryan House, to keep it up so it wouldn't be vacant.\nBill and Shirley VanKeuren had stayed in apartments in Evermann and Tulip Tree, but were happy to make the campus landmark their home -- and to watch other students walk to classes from the Bryan House porch.