The Owl

The inscription on the Spooner Hall portico reads: “Whoso findeth wisdom findeth life,” and a sandstone owl, the symbol of wisdom, sits in a niche on the gable.

The owl may have been designed by the Spooner architect, Henry van Brunt (1832-1903), a partner in the Kansas City, Mo., firm of Van Brunt & Howe. He was an 1854 graduate of Harvard University and a student of Richard Morris Hunt, the most notable American proponent of the Gothic Revival and Renaissance Revival styles.