The College of Saint Rose

This home at 979 Madison, today a part of The College of Saint Rose, was once the whole college.

The house was the first property purchased by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet for the establishment of a college for Catholic women. Previously it had belonged to one branch of the Keeler family, famed Albany restauranteurs. The sisters bought the house and grounds in the spring of 1920, and that fall they welcomed the college's first students – all 19 of them. Student rooms, library, classrooms, chapel, dining room, faculty residences — all were here in the college’s first year, plus a chemistry lab out in the detached garage.

The college bought additional properties as its enrollment and course offerings expanded. To your left is St. Joseph Hall: It was the school's first “new” classroom building, constructed by the growing institution in 1923. By the end of the decade, enrollment was over 200.

Saint Rose became fully coeducational in 1969. At that time, the college's full-time undergraduate enrollment was less than a thousand students. Today, the college has more than 4,000 students in its graduate and undergraduate programs and a campus that includes more than six dozen buildings in the Pine Hills neighborhood, many of them former houses.