The Wittel Dormitory, which sits at the corner of East Thach Avenue and South Gay Street, is currently up for sale, and the likely owners plan to convert the old private women’s dorm into a hotel.
At their regular meeting last week, the Auburn Planning Commission approved MHW LLC’s application to use the building as a hotel.
The newly dubbed “Collegiate Hotel at Auburn” was described by the pending owners as a “boutique hotel” and will have 40 beds. The commission also approved a waiver to allow the hotel owners to construct a driveway that cuts into South Gay Street. Developers said it will make it possible for the hoteliers to provide a valet service to guests.
The building will remain relatively unchanged, but the current plan includes a new porch that wraps around to the hotel’s entrance.
The application faced little opposition from the commission.
“It’s a wonderful project,” said Planning Commissioner Dan Bennett. “It’s really important not only to the history of this community, but to our future as well.”
Commissioner Charles Pick agreed.
“I’m in favor of restoring any type of historic property,” he said. “I think it’s important to support these type of activities.”
According to the Auburn Heritage Association, the dormitory was built in the 1940s by Samuel Wittel as a residence for professional women. To meet increasing enrollment after World War II at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, today Auburn University, Wittel Dormitory was designated as the first women’s dorm in Auburn.
Wittel and his wife Estelle lived in the building’s private quarters with their children and grandchildren after their son David returned home from serving in the Army during World War II.
Talking to The Plainsman, Samuel’s granddaughter Pat Tremaine described growing up in the dorm.
“It was like a family,” she said. “The girls would come over and watch TV with my grandparents. [My grandmother] would have tea for them.”
“I always felt like I was going to college,” Tremaine said of living in the building with students.
During the 1950s, male students would go on “panty raids” throughout town. Tremaine said she remembers looking out her bedroom window during one of the raids and seeing James E. Foy, dean of student affairs and later the namesake of Auburn’s first student union, participating.
The Wittels lived in the building until David passed away in 1980. They sold the building shortly after, and it remains a private women’s dorm until the hotel project begins.
“My grandfather always sat by the window in the sitting room,” Tremaine said. “I still look at that window when I go by and can almost see him still there.”
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