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Stern Hall

This website represents information for the 2023-24 academic year. Updated Neighborhood information will be available in early April.

 

General Information         Pictures and Floor Plans         Stern Hall Houses          Furnishings          Rates Chart

This residence is a part of Aspen

 

Lucie Stern Hall, built shortly after World War II and renovated in 1995, represents Stanford’s brief departure into architectural modernism. Stern honors donor “Aunt Lucie” Stern, a popular local figure and friend of the university who often invited students to her Palo Alto house to make them feel at home.

Stern Hall consists of six small houses that accommodate about 80-100 students each, either in all-frosh, all sophomore or 4-class houses. Stern houses were originally named for California pioneers, such as horticulturalist Luther Burbank and mother lode author Mark Twain. Sally Ride House was renamed very recently after alumna Sally Ride, a physicist and the first American woman in space. 

Burbank is home to the ITALIC theme house (Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture) an arts community. Read more about ITALIC here. Casa Zapata is a four-class residence focusing on the Chicanx and Latinx experience. Learn more about this program here.

 

Stern and the post-war building boom

Stern Hall is a beloved residence on campus due, in part, to Lucie Stern. Lucie’s gifts and donations to Stanford University - including student loans, gifts to health services, Stern Hall, and a new Law School building – have allowed students, faculty, and staff to thrive and continue carrying on her spirit.

Today, Stern Hall's architectural style is often considered controversial at Stanford, but, when it was built in 1948, some saw it as a necessary shift toward modern architecture and planning. In his support of Stern and other building-boom projects at the time, Stanford President Donald Tresidder (1943-1948) called for “new educational buildings [that] will not…imitate, in steel and glass and concrete, the truly inimitable beauty of the stone-built quads…Rather we shall build with today’s materials, harmoniously, but of the present.”

Eldredge Spencer, a Beaux Arts-trained San Francisco architect, headed Stanford’s first planning office, established under Tresidder, and designed Stern. Abandoning Stanford’s familiar red-tile roofs and arcades, Stern organized the houses around small internal courtyards, but provided for a central kitchen and dining facility. Faculty resident apartments and common areas in each house - particularly libraries and lounges - were meant to encourage interaction among students and faculty.

For information on the accessibility of residences for both living and visiting, please reference our Undergraduate Residences Accessibility Summary chart.

 

General Information

Residence NameStern Hall – Map
Area of CampusEastside
Navigation Address618 Escondido Road, Stanford, CA 94305
Housing Service CenterAspen Housing Service Center
Dining ServiceLocated in the center of the Stern residential complex and serving students from Burbank, Donner, Larkin, Sally Ride, Twain, and Casa Zapata (the ChicanX and LatinX theme house)Stern Dining is the newest nut-sensitive dining hall, and is heavily influenced by the vibrant community that surrounds it. From the daily salsa bar to the rotating Latin American specials, the taste of the food is matched only by the beauty of the murals adorning the walls of the dining rooms. A Stanford Dining neighborhood dining meal plan is required.
Class ConfigurationAll-frosh, Upperclass, or 4-Class
Co-ed TypeMixed-gender by corridor (students of different genders live on the same floor)
Custodial ServiceUniversity managed
BathroomsSeparate bathrooms and showers for men and women are located on each floor plus at least one all-gender restroom in each house.

 

Residence Videos
Stern - Twain
Stern - Zapata
Stern - Burbank
Double Room - Top View
Double Room - Top View

Stern Hall Houses

Houses

Configuration

Coed type

Res Ed Program

Burbank* 4-class house Mixed-gender by corridor Immersion in the Arts - Living in Culture theme
Casa Zapata* 4-class house Mixed-gender by corridor Ethnic theme house - Chicanx/Latinx Focus. 
Donner All-frosh Single-gender corridors and mixed-gender corridors Learn More
Larkin All-frosh Mixed-gender by corridor Learn More
Sally Ride Upperclass Mixed-gender by corridor Learn More
Twain Upperclass Mixed-gender by corridor Learn More

 

*Important Assignment Information

Residential Education offers a pre-assignment system for University Theme Houses for academic year assignments. This process allows Resident Fellows, Faculty Affiliates, and house program staff to pre-assign, before the annual housing assignment process, all spaces in the house to students who complete a pre-assignment application and meet specific requirements.

Furnishings

Wall-to-wall carpetingExtra-long twin bed
Window coveringsDesk and chair
High-speed internet accessWall-mounted bookshelves
Waste basket and recycling binDresser
 Mirror