30 



i^ 



100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 



moved on to another. Others slept outside, on the roofs. People have since 

 then acquired a taste for privacy and also for baths and showers, which 

 were all rare in those early days at the MBL when even running water 

 remained a treat. 



Since those early yecirs, the MBL has made an effort to provide housing 

 for its community, with the trustees perpetually concerned about how to 

 raise funds to provide sufficient dormitory space for students. At first stu- 

 dents and investigators alike boarded out in town. Then the development of 

 what had once been the small island of Penzance Point, after the demise of 

 the guano works, provided opportunities for those who could afford the 

 property in the growing resort community. Various other arrangements have 

 arisen to provide housing as well. One woman recalled when the men 

 students roomed on the lower floors of one house, and the women on the top 

 where they could dry their hair and hang up laundry in the sunny cupola 

 atop the building. 



For a while in the early 1900s students found themselves rooming in the 

 old stone Candle House. The "Hotel Majestic" they called the structure, 

 though it smelled a bit odd and clothes had to be hung from rafters for lack 

 of closets. The building is beautiful now that it has been renovated and 

 turned into a modern and even air-conditioned administration building. In 

 the bunkhouse days that beauty was harder to see. Built in 1836 at the height 



Hotel Majestic, " summer 

 quarters for many students 

 in the early days. 

 MBL Archives. 



