Keep Cottage, also known as Keep Cooperative is an 1839 post-Victorian

tudor revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

mansion owned and maintained by

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

Oberlin, Ohio Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, 31 miles southwest of Cleveland. Oberlin is the home of Oberlin College, a liberal arts college and music conservatory with approximately 3,000 students. The town is the birthplace of the ...

, United States. Originally home to the Reverend

John Keep Rev. John Keep (April 20, 1781 – February 11, 1870) was a trustee of Oberlin College from 1834 to 1870. Keep and William Dawes toured England in 1839 and 1840 gathering funds for Oberlin College in Ohio. They both attended the 1840 anti-slave ...

, the house underwent a serious renovation in 1911 in order to transform it into a college dormitory. In 1965, it is a rental property of

Oberlin Student Cooperative Association The Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA) is a non-profit corporation that feeds and houses Oberlin College students. It is located in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, and is independent from but closely tied to Oberlin College, which has ...

, the second largest student cooperative in the United States. It is named after its primary trustee, the reverend John Keep, an abolitionist who cast the deciding vote that let African-American students attend Oberlin College, the first institution to do so.

History

The contract for the construction of Keep Cottage was awarded to Mr. George Feick of Sandusky in October, 1911. The architect was the firm of Patton and Miller of Chicago. The cottage was opened for use in January, 1913. It has dormitory accommodations for fifty-two women. It was named in honor of Rev. John Keep and Mrs. Theodore J. Keep. Mr. George M. Clark and his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Keep Clark, contributed $10,000 toward the cost of this cottage. The total cost, including equipment and site, was $45,500.

OSCA

Keep is entirely student-run, with all participating students working as cooks, buyers, administrators, and coordinators. Most decisions within Keep are made by modified consensus. Oberlin bans all fraternities and sororities, making the co-ops the largest student-organized social system at the college. OSCA boards 630 students, the cottage houses 54 of those diners. Similar to Tank and Old Barrows, Keep has a tradition of vegetarian meals, with meat occasionally and vegan options. The intimate and homey lounge is the primary venue for the cooperative's events, historically including the campus-wide Halloween party, the OSCA Chamber Ensemble and weekly astronomy sessions. Keep’s basement is also home to the Oberlin Bike Co-op, where students can rent bicycles and learn to fix them, too. In the cooperative spirit, each member of the house has an assigned, equitable task requiring some five hours of cooking or house maintenance every week. The

(OSCA) remains a nonprofit organization separate from Oberlin College and refunds unspent room and board to its members at the end of the school year.

References

{{Oberlin College , state=expanded Oberlin College