Cloister Inn is one of the undergraduate

eating clubs at Princeton University The eating clubs at Princeton University are private institutions resembling both dining halls and social houses, where the majority of Princeton upperclassmen eat their meals. Each eating club occupies a large mansion on Prospect Avenue (Prospe ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Founded in 1912, Cloister occupies a

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

building on Prospect Avenue, between

Cap and Gown Club Cap and Gown Club, founded in 1890, is an eating club at Princeton University, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Colloquially known as "Cap", the club is one of the "Big Four" eating clubs at Princeton (the others are The Ivy Club, Universi ...

and Charter Club. Cloister closed temporarily in 1972, becoming open to all Princeton alumni, before reopening as an undergraduate club in 1977. The club is "sign-in", meaning that it selects its members from a lottery process rather than the bicker process used by several of the eating clubs. Cloister typically attracts an athletic crowd and its members often include a number of Olympians. The official motto of the club is “Where everybody knows your name”.

History

Cloister Inn was founded in 1912. The present building was constructed in 1924. It was designed by architects R.H. Scannell and

Charles Lewis Bowman Charles Lewis Bowman (1890 – May 31, 1971) was an American architect. Born in New York City December 9, 1890 but raised in Mount Vernon, New York he graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York with both his Bachelors (Class of 1912) a ...

NRHP
Cloister received mention in Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason's 2004 bestselling novel ''The Rule of Four''. Caldwell, a 1998 graduate of Princeton, was a member of Cloister.

Notable alumni

Business

Robert Briskman Robert D. Briskman (born October 15, 1932) is Technical Executive of Sirius XM Radio. He was the Chief Technical Officer and Executive Vice President, Engineering of Sirius Satellite Radio since its founding in 1991. Briskman has been involved ...

'54, co-founder of

Sirius Satellite Radio Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Holdings. Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis, Sirius ...

and Technical Executive of

Sirius XM Radio Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...

Tad Smith Thomas Sidney "Tad" Smith, Jr. (born June 1965) is an American businessman, the former president and chief executive officer of Sotheby's. Smith is also an adjunct professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. Education Smith gra ...

'87, chief executive of

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

Literature and the arts

Craig Mazin Craig Mazin (born April 8, 1971) is an American screenwriter and film director. He is best known for creating the five-part HBO miniseries ''Chernobyl (miniseries), Chernobyl'', based on the Chernobyl disaster, nuclear disaster of the same name in ...

'92, screenwriter and director *

Ian Caldwell Ian Mackinnon Caldwell is an American novelist known for co-authoring the 2004 novel '' The Rule of Four''. His second book, ''The Fifth Gospel'', was published in 2015. Personal life Caldwell was born and raised in Fairfax County, Virginia dur ...

'98, co-author of the bestselling novel ''

The Rule of Four :''This article relates to the 2004 novel. For the legal practice, see Rule of four''. The Rule of Four is a novel written by the American authors Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, and published in 2004. Caldwell, a Princeton University graduate ...

'', which was set at Princeton and includes several scenes that take place at Cloister *

Nicholas Confessore Nicholas Confessore is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political correspondent on the National Desk of ''The New York Times''. Early life Confessore grew up in New York City and attended Hunter College High School. He was a politics major at Princeton ...

'98, political correspondent for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

Politics, government, and public affairs

Anne-Marie Slaughter Anne-Marie Slaughter (born September 27, 1958) is an American international lawyer, foreign policy analyst, political scientist and public commentator. From 2002 to 2009, she was the Dean of Princeton University's School of Public and Internat ...

'80, president and CEO of the

New America Foundation New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a think tank in the United States founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, educa ...

and former

Director of Policy Planning The Director of Policy Planning is the United States Department of State official in charge of the department's internal think tank, the Policy Planning Staff. In the department, the Director of Policy Planning has a rank equivalent to Assistant ...

for the

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

Eliot Spitzer Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is an American politician and attorney. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was the 54th governor of New York from 2007 until his resignation in 2008. Spitzer was b ...

'81, former New York governor *

Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 10, 2010, and has served since August 7, 2010. Kagan ...

'81, United States Supreme Court justice *

Nan Hayworth Nan Alison Hayworth (née Sutter; born December 14, 1959) is an American ophthalmologist and former Congresswoman for . A Republican, she was elected in 2010. In 2012, after redistricting, Hayworth ran for reelection in the new 18th district. ...

'81, former

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

for

New York's 19th congressional district New York's 19th congressional district is located in New York's Catskills and mid-Hudson Valley regions. It lies partially in the northernmost region of the New York metropolitan area and mostly south of Albany. This district is currently rep ...

Chris Lu Christopher P. Lu (; born June 12, 1966) is a Chinese American political advisor who serves as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform. He is also an alternative representative to the United Nations General Assembly d ...

'88,

United States Deputy Secretary of Labor The United States deputy secretary of labor is the second-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Labor. In the United States federal government, the deputy secretary oversees the day-to-day operation of the Department of Lab ...

* Nuala O'Connor '89, current president of the

Center for Democracy and Technology Centre for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the internet for pur ...

and inaugural Chief Privacy Officer for the

US Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

Charles W. Yost Charles Woodruff Yost (November 6, 1907 – May 21, 1981) was a career U.S. Ambassador who was assigned as his country's representative to the United Nations from 1969 to 1971. Biography Yost was born in Watertown, New York. He attended t ...

'28, U.S. Ambassador to Laos, Syria, Morocco, and U.S. Ambassador to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

Sport

* Frank Anger '61, member of the United States team in

Fencing at the Summer Olympics Fencing has been contested at every Summer Olympic Games since the birth of the modern Olympic movement at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. There are three forms of Olympic fencing: *Foil — a light thrusting weapon; the valid target is rest ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

in 1962 *

Derek Bouchard-Hall Derek Bouchard-Hall (born July 16, 1970) is a former US professional cyclist, whose career highlights include winning the gold medal in the team pursuit at the 1999 Pan American Games, winning the 2000 United States National Criterium Championships ...

'92, former professional cyclist, competitor in the men's team pursuit in

Cycling at the 2000 Summer Olympics Cycling at the 2000 Summer Olympics, 3 different bicycle racing disciplines were contested: Road cycling, track cycling, and mountain biking. Road cycling Track cycling Men Women Mountain biking Medal table Records broken OR = Olym ...

, and current CEO and president of

USA Cycling USA Cycling or USAC, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the national governing body for bicycle racing in the United States. It covers the disciplines of road, track, mountain bike, cyclo-cross, and BMX across all ages and ability leve ...

Danika Holbrook Danika Holbrook-Harris (born September 15, 1972) is an American competitive rower. She competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, in the women's quadruple sculls. She was born in Durham, New Hampshire. She won a bronze medal at the 1993 ...

'95, competitor for the United States in Rowing at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Women's quadruple sculls * Morgan Crooks '98, competitor for Canada in

Rowing at the 2000 Summer Olympics Rowing at the 2000 Summer Olympics took place at the Sydney International Regatta Centre in Penrith, New South Wales, Australia. It featured 547 competitors (363 men and 184 women) from 51 nations taking part in 14 events. The medals were spl ...

* Chris Ahrens '98, gold medalist in the Men's Eights event in

Rowing at the 2004 Summer Olympics Rowing at the 2004 Summer Olympics took place at the Schinias Olympic Rowing and Canoeing Centre and featured 550 competitors taking part in 14 events. The medals were split among 22 countries, Romania topping the medal table, their women winn ...

Thomas Herschmiller Thomas Herschmiller (born April 6, 1978 in Comox, British Columbia) is a Canadian rower. He graduated from Brentwood College School in 1996. He won a gold medal at the 2003 world championships in Milan, Italy and a silver in the same event at the ...

'01, silver medalist for Canada in

* Paul Teti '01, three-time member of the United States Olympic

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically atta ...

team *

Lia Pernell Lia Pernell (born August 16, 1981) is an American rower. She was born in Berkeley, California. She competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she placed fifth in quadruple sculls, together with Lindsay Meyer, Jennifer Kaido and Mar ...

'03, competitor for the United States in

Rowing at the 2008 Summer Olympics Rowing competitions at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing were held from August 9 to August 17, at the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park. Qualification Medal table Medal summary Men's events Women's events See also *Rowing at t ...

Juan Pablo Valdivieso Juan Pablo Valdivieso (born February 27, 1981) is a Peruvian former swimmer, who specialized in butterfly events. Valdivieso holds a dual citizenship between his parents' nation Peru and the United States, where he currently resides. He is also i ...

'04, two-time member of

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

's Olympic swimming team *

Samuel Loch Samuel Loch (born 26 June 1983) is an Australian former representative rower. A dual Olympian and two time bronze medal winner at World Championships, he has set and holds world records in indoor rowing with times set on the Concept 2 rowing m ...

'06, Australian

rower Rowing, sometimes called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars are attached to the boat using oarlocks, while paddles are not connected to the boat. Rowing is di ...

who competed in the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

and

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

Steven Coppola Douglas Steven Coppola Jr. (born May 22, 1984, in Buffalo, New York) and is an American rower. He won a bronze medal in the men's eight at the 2008 Summer Olympics. He is currently the Head Women's coach at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Bi ...

'06, bronze medalist for the United States in Rowing at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Men's eight *

Caroline Lind Caroline Lind (born October 11, 1982) is an American rower, and is a two-time Olympic gold medalist. At the end of 2014 she was ranked the #1 female rower by International Rowing Federation. Rowing career Lind won gold in the Women's eight for ...

'06, two-time Olympic gold medalist for the United States in

Women's rowing Women's rowing is the participation of women in the sport of rowing. Women row in all boat classes, from single scull to coxed eights, across the same age ranges and standards as men, from junior amateur through university-level to elite athlete ...

Genevra Stone Genevra Lea 'Gevvie' Stone (born July 11, 1985) is an Olympic United States, American rower from Newton, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Tufts University School of Medicine. Biography Stone was born on July 11, 1 ...

'07, six-time winner of the women's championship singles event at

Head of the Charles Regatta The Head of the Charles Regatta, also known as HOCR, is a rowing head race held on the penultimate complete weekend of October (i.e., on the Friday that falls between the 16th and the 22nd of the month, and on the Saturday and Sunday immedia ...

and competitor for the United States in Rowing at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Women's single sculls * Glenn Ochal '08, bronze medalist for the United States in Rowing at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Men's coxless four *

Douglas Lennox-Silva Douglas Lennox-Silva (born April 10, 1987 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida) is a male butterfly swimmer from Puerto Rico, who was born in the United States. He represented Puerto Rico at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, PR China. He is the younger ...

'09,

swimmer Swimming is an individual or team racing sport that requires the use of one's entire body to move through water. The sport takes place in pools or open water (e.g., in a sea or lake). Competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic ...

who represented

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

in the

* Grant Wentworth '09, record holder in

open water swimming Open water swimming is a swimming discipline which takes place in outdoor bodies of water such as open oceans, lakes, and rivers. The beginning of the modern age of open water human swimming, swimming is sometimes taken to be May 3, 1810, when L ...

for the solo swim from

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

Nantucket Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...

Sara Hendershot Sara Hendershot (born April 27, 1988) is an American rower from West Simsbury, CT, who competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women's pair with Sarah Zelenka. Sara played soccer and swimming in high school, but began rowing full-time i ...

'10, representative of the United States in

Rowing at the 2012 Summer Olympics The rowing competitions at the 2012 Olympic Games in London were held from 28 July to 4 August 2012, at Dorney Lake which, for the purposes of the Games venue, was officially termed Eton Dorney. Fourteen medal events were contested by 550 a ...

Robin Prendes Robin Prendes (born December 13, 1988) is an American rowing (sport), rower. He competed in the Rowing at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's lightweight coxless four, Men's lightweight coxless four event at the 2012 Summer Olympics. The team fin ...

'11, representative of the United States in

in the men's coxless four *

Bryan Tay Bryan Tay (born Tay Zhi Rong, born 13 April 1988) is a Singaporean swimmer, who specialized in individual and relay freestyle events. He is also a multiple-time medalist for the individual events, and a two-time defending champion for the rela ...

'12,

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

's sole representative in men's

Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics The Swimming (sport), swimming competitions at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place from 9 to 17 August 2008 at the Beijing National Aquatics Centre. The newly introduced open water marathon events (10 km) were held on 20 and 21 August 2008 ...

* Susie Scanlan '14, American epee fencer who won a bronze medal in the

References

External links

Homepage
{{Princeton Eating clubs at Princeton University Historic district contributing properties in Mercer County, New Jersey