A historic home designed by the first dean of the Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture (SAPLA) has been restored for use by students and professors.

The home, a Dutch Colonial Revival-style residence listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was recently purchased by Auburn engineering alumn Walt Woltosz and his wife Ginger. The Woltoszes purchased the home, according to the SAPLA website, as a gameday house, but decided to donate the structure to the university when they discovered that it had in fact been designed by SAPLA’s first dean, Frederick Child Biggin. 

Biggin designed the house in 1927 when SAPLA was known as the School of Architecture and Applied Arts and Auburn University was the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. According to a historic district landmark designation report, Biggin was a graduate of Lehigh and Cornell universities, and came to the college in 1916. He would go on to head the school for 27 years, “instituting the curriculums of Architectural Engineering, Landscape Architecture, and Interior Design.” When the School of Architecture was established in 1907, as the Department of Architecture, it became the first architecture program in the south, according to the report. 

Today, the home has been restored and renamed as the Biggin-Woltosz House, and now hosts faculty meetings, classes, seminars and exhibitions, including a recent showcase of the Rural Studio’s Front Porch Initiative.