When Home Is A House: Children of Masters

Imagine living in a 200-bedroom house with a private courtyard, a team of chefs and a fully equipped gymnasium. It would boast a library with a renowned collection, game rooms, movies, a dining room decorated with enormous chandeliers and an extended family of about 500 people.

You don't have to be Richie Rich to enjoy all this--just the child of a Harvard house master.

"I like to explore and stuff on the fifth floor and try to find the roof," says nine-year-old Antonia M. Nagy, daughter of Currier House master Gregory Nagy. And she says she also likes to roller skate down the halls of Currier.

According to his father, 15-year-old Mark Hanson, son of the Dudley House masters, enjoys playing pick-up basketball at the Malkin Athletic Center. And his brother Nathaniel, 12, says his pool game has definitely improved as a result of his playing at Dudley House's Lehman Hall.

Others masters' children take advantage of the country's second largest library--but not to study.

"The children loved to jump around Widener," says Jana M. Kiely, co-master of Adams and mother of four. "The bench around it was like a gym for them."

She says her youngest daughter Maria, who has spent all her 12 years living in a residential house, still loves to play "stone to stone" in front of the Science Center.

Masters' children also say undergraduates often make great playmates. "Once I was playing Indians with a student, and I got so into it I built a play fire at his feet and then tied him to a tree and left him there," 20-year-old Christina T. Kiely '91 says. The victim missed all of his afternoon classes, and father Robert J. Kiely scolded her, telling her never to tie anyone up again, she says.

In addition to providing the biggest playground and the most patient playmates around, Harvard offers children a unique cultural environment.

"We always took them to Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and then to plays and concerts when they got older," says Co-Master Kiely. "The children also loved the Indian exhibit and the glass flowers at the Peabody Museum."

Kiely's third daughter, Christina, is now a Harvard junior, but she got an early start on her extracurricular activities at Harvard: "I was in The Beggar's Opera with my father when I was four or five," she says. She says she never got to see the end of the show because her mother always whisked her off to bed after her brief appearance on stage.

Glass designer Karen R. Hastings, the daughter of North House Master J. Woodland Hastings, sang in the North House Opera while in high school. She says that being a master's child let her benefit from Harvard life, even though she was never a student here. "I was exposed to a broader world at a younger age," she says. "A lot of interesting people were always coming to talk."

Older and More Interesting Friends

And there are social advantages to having older and more interesting friends than their peers.

"In fifth grade I began to really get into it--you know the toga parties and stuff," says Laszlo P. Nagy, 12, whose parents are the masters of Currier House.

"When I was in high school it suddenly became cool to know kids in college, and I became a connection to Harvard parties," says Christina Kiely.

Others make friends in a more genteel manner.

"I made friends through teas. Parties were a family affair, and the students were cool about talking to us when we were little," Gregory N. Bossert says. "A lot of tutors became friends of the family." Even though Bossert is 27 years old, he says he still goes out with his Lowell House friends when they come to down.

The newest addition to the family of Harvard kids, 16-year-old Erika E. Liem--whose father became Dunster House master in July--says that talking to students in the house dining hall is interesting. "I know a lot of faces, and I'm sure by the end of the year I'll know everyone in the house."

And even though the Dudley House master and his family live in a private home in Belmont, Master Paul D. Hanson says his sons have made "deep friends" in the house.

'Few Friends My Own Age'

But although growing up in a house can give kids the opportunity to make old friends, some parents and children say it can also cut them off from their peers.

"My older children missed Newton, where every house had children, and there was a park, and they could always go out and kick a ball around with a group of friends," says Jana Kiely. She says she found it difficult to move from a neighborly suburban environment to an area where she and other parents had to arrange getting their children together.

"There were lots of kids my own age at my old house, but here I only have a few friends my age," Antonia Nagy says.

"We were at first unsure about becoming masters because we didn't want to be in Harvard Square with children," says Mary Lee Bossert, co-master of Lowell House. "The kids stayed in the Belmont school system, and it turned out that their friends really liked to come here."

And while house masters may not have to call their kids in from the neighborhood kickball game to come have dinner with the family, masters and kids both say that living at the College can impinge on the nuclear family unit.

"It definitely changes what a family is like," says Karen Hastings, who spent her high school years at North House and now designs glass art in Santa Fe, N.M. "I think I felt sometimes that there wasn't as much time spent as a family."

She added that family dinner discussions often revolve around North House issues.

"My parents are away more than they were before because they have to go to things in the evenings," Nathaniel Hanson says.

Conversely, other masters says that living among so many caring people extends the traditional family.

Hanson says that Dudley House's dining hall staff members have become "surrogate parents" to his two sons, Mark and Nathaniel.

But food service employees says they are not doing anything beyond the call of duty. "We just make sure they eat," says dining hall worker Helen M. Kelley.

Whether bad or good, all agree that growing up at Harvard does not foster traditional family values.

"My mom doesn't come home and say, `Hi sweetie, how was your day,' but it's no big deal because they're always somewhere around," Laszlo Nagy says.

And Laura A. Hastings '82, now back with her parents in North House, says she had to get used to "students calling and ringing on the doorbell at all hours of the day and night."

Some masters says they must make a special effort to strengthen families ties. They say that eating together as a family is very important, although they only have the time to do that two or three times a week. Masters says they have to balance their time between the students they care about and their families.

"It's very important to have family time together, and we've always though it absurd to try to eat in the dining hall as a family," says Judith F. Dowling, co-master of Leverett House. She says that although she loves being part of the students' lives, she has left it up to her kids to decide whether to be part of house life.

Having a family in a dormitory situation affects not only the family, but also undergraduates.

"I see these kids running around the dining hall, and I think to myself, `What are they, geniuses?'" says Scott D. Davis '92.

And, complains Michael S. Kramer '92, "They eat all the ice cream."

But having kids around kids does have its advantages.

"Since Harvard tends not to be family-oriented in other situations, I think it's humanizing for students to see masters with their children," says Master Nagy.

"It's definitely good to have a family like that living in the house and reminding us of reality," says Currier House resident Christina Dragomirescu '90 says.

And the kids say dining hall food is not always what they have in mind for dinner.

"If the food is bad I run upstairs and ask my mom to cook me something good," Antonia Nagy says. And her brother adds, "I mean, how many chickwiches can you eat?"

In any case, masters' children say, growing up at Harvard has influenced, or in the case of the younger ones, will influence their decisions about where to go to college.

"I was just around it so much that I got really sick of it. I definitely wanted to go away," says Karen Hastings, who graduated from Reed College in Oregon.

"I liked Harvard as a home, but wanted to grow by going to college in a different area," says Carleton graduate Gregory Bossert.

Twelve-year-old Nathaniel Hanson says he has already decided that he definitely does not want to go to Harvard. "When I'm ready to go to college, I'll be ready to get away from home, so my parents can't be checking up on me all the time."

Still, Laura Hastings decided to enroll at Harvard before her parents became North House masters, but says that she might have chosen a different college had she known that her parents were going to accept the position.

"Being the daughter of a master bothered me for two-and-a-half years while I was here," she says. Of her first year she says, "They would call me every once in a while to see how the freshmen felt about a certain issue but they ignored me otherwise because they were so busy."

She says she was insecure and she didn't want most of her friends to know who her parents were. "I didn't want to live in their shadow, but I was very proud of them," she says. "It's better to have people know you and like you for who you are."

Hastings says that although she lived in Leverett House, her her first choice in the housing lottery, housing officials assured her that she would not be put in North House, independent of the results of the lottery.

On the other hand, current junior Christina T. Kiely says she likes knowing she can see her parents any time she pleases.

If Harvard is losing some masters' children, others hope that having grown up here will work in their favor.

"I know I definitely want to go to Harvard. It's the ultimate university," says Laszlo Nagy. "I know you have to be super ultra-smart to go here but I get pretty good grades and plus I'm a faculty brat--that might help."