Alan Garber Will Not Move Into the Official Residence of Harvard’s President

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 will not move into Elmwood, becoming the first University leader in more than 50 years to pass up the opportunity to live at the official residence of the president of Harvard.

Garber, who officially became Harvard’s 31st president in August, will continue to live at his private residence for the duration of his three-year tenure at the helm of the University.

The property at 33 Elmwood Avenue has served as home to Garber’s five most recent predecessors. The property has been vacant since former Harvard President Claudine Gay left Elmwood after resigning in January, a University spokesperson confirmed.

In the meantime, Elmwood will be used for events hosted by the president and other top University officials.

Elmwood, a bright yellow mansion with 12 rooms, is located a little more than a mile away from Harvard Yard.

First built in the eighteenth century, the Elmwood property has played an important role in both American and Harvard history. It functioned as a field hospital for George Washington’s troops during the revolutionary war and was home to Elbridge Gerry, who took the oath of office as Vice President of the United States in 1813 in the house’s drawing room.

The property was later bequeathed to Harvard by professor A. Kingsley Porter after his wife died in 1962. It was first used by the University that same year to house the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

At the time, the official president’s residence was Loeb House – now home to the Harvard Corporation and the Harvard Board of Overseers, the University’s governing boards.

But when former Harvard President Derek C. Bok was appointed to lead the University in 1971, he preferred to move to Elmwood due to construction and ongoing student protests. Until Garber, every president since Bok has called Elmwood home.

Garber has already experienced protests outside his private residence. In early May, over 400 protesters marched to Garber’s home after he announced he would not negotiate with the participants of a pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard.

Though Garber’s decision to not move into Elmwood as the University’s permanent president is a break with tradition, he was not Harvard’s first interim president to live in his private home.

After former University President Lawrence H. Summers resigned in 2006, Bok returned to Harvard’s top administration for one year to serve as interim president but did not live at Elmwood during his brief second stint in Massachusetts Hall.

—Staff writer Emma H. Haidar can be reached at emma.haidar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @HaidarEmma.

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles or on Threads @camkettles.