Eisenlohr: Hackneys' haven

President Sheldon Hackney is linked to the University through both a job and a home, and he will be forced to give up both if he is confirmed for the National Endowment for the Humanities chairpersonship. Hackney and his wife, Lucy, have lived in Eisenlohr, the University-owned, University-maintained and University-furnished 25-room mansion at 3812 Walnut Street, since 1982, and if Hackney leaves behind the presidency, he will leave the house behind, too. Eisenlohr is home for the Hackneys -- and Lucy Hackney's cousin, College senior Steve Black -- but it is also a "focal meeting-place for the present-day campus community," according to a booklet on the "elegant West Philadelphia mansion." Hackney said he hosts "lots and lots of parties," but Lucy said "it's not as though the house is bombarded at every second." The mansion -- built in 1911 and most recently restored in 1981 -- was donated to the University in 1939 by Josephine Eisenlohr, the widow of a cigar manufacturer who was unaffiliated with the University. Today, the historic building is included on the West Philadelphia house tour. Though the house is visited by its share of specatators -- several thousand each year by the Hackneys' estimation -- the Hackneys' residence is more homey than museum-like. The Hackneys agree that the house feels very familiar even though it is often used as a catering hall and sometimes even a hotel. The president said that sometimes University guests stay overnight at Eisenlohr, but added that "if they're total strangers, we don't press it upon them." The Hackneys' most recent famous guests were former Congresswoman Lindy Boggs and her daughter, ABC Correspondent Cokie Roberts -- both of whom of are old friends of the Hackneys since the president's tenure as Tulane University president. The Hackney's grandchildren visit more than any other guests, judging by the Chutes and Ladders box and other kids' toys piled on the sides of Eisenlohr's staircases. The "general purpose" room -- technically the library -- right off the kitchen on the first floor, is the most used room in the house besides the kitchen, the University's first lady said recently. It is informal and scattered with pictures of their three children, Elizabeth, Sheldon and Virginia. Lucy Hackney acted as the chief decorator of Eisenlohr before she and her husband moved in, but since the furniture and decorations came from rooms throughout the University, the interior of Eisenlohr will stay even when the Hackneys leave. "[We] didn't inherit anything," she said. But the president said the furniture in his study -- where he spends his "happiest times" -- is "pretty much" all his own. That is, if you can call the thousands of books which cover three walls of the president's private haven furniture. Just as Hackney's salary in Washington will not compare to the one he has now -- $285,000 last academic year versus the $123,100 he will recieve at the NEH -- his Washington neighbors probably cannot compare either. Lucy Hackney said one of the most unusual aspects about living at Eisenlohr is having no adult neighbors. "Living amidst fraternities is interesting," she said. But the president said he has gotten used to his neighbors and said he enjoyed watching some Sigma Nu brothers sunbathe in bathing suits during March's blizzard. "[You] get used to [the noise]," Hackney said. "We don't even hear the sirens anymore."

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