As the sun sets on Millville, the lights come up at the Fleischner Center acting as a shining beacon and marking the entrance to the campus.
With gratitude to the three generations of Fleischners for whom the building is named, and to the other generous leadership donors acknowledged within, St. Paul’s School opened its newest building right on schedule this winter.
The first occupants, the School’s Communications Office, took up residence on the first floor of the 16,000-square-foot building in early February, followed one month later by the Admissions Office, which occupies the second floor. The center, designed to a high environmental standard, lies 200 yards inside the School’s entrance between Alumni House and the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science and serves as a warm, welcoming destination not only for prospective students and their families, but also alumni and other visitors, as well as the greater Millville community of students, faculty and staff.
On the first floor, families enter into a space purposefully built to reflect the School’s mission and guiding principles. Just beyond the reception desk, a soaring gathering room with expansive views of the athletic fields creates an immediate sense of belonging for visitors and community members alike, with furnishings that evoke the reds of the School’s brick paths and buildings, the greens of its 2,000 wooded acres, and the gray-blues of its waterways. Upstairs, offices for the Admissions team with almost-birds-eye views of the grounds provide comfortable settings for conversations with prospective students and their families.
In warmer weather, a granite-paved patio on the building’s east side will offer seating in the sun and serve as the departure point for student-led tours of their School, one of the places in the world they call home.
The Fleischner Family Admissions Center will be dedicated on May 2 during Anniversary Weekend.
February 2025
A Lantern at the Gate
July 2024
Construction Update
The utilities are connected, the full frame is in place and the interior work is now underway inside the Fleischner Family Admissions Center!
Watch the seasons change as the CBT Architects-designed building takes shape in this timelapse video.
February 2024
Beam Signing
In late February 2024, the SPS community came together to leave their mark on the new Fleischner Family Admissions Center by signing their names and form years to one of the structural steel beams. In this video, watch as the beam is hoisted into its permanent place along the center’s peaked roofline.
“The vision for this wonderful new building came from the Fleischners’ desire to make a positive impact on our students’ experience in community life. They embraced the idea of thinking about our campus as a village — true to our heritage as Millville — and their desire to inspire our students’ community life quickly evolved into the idea of returning Sheldon Library back to the students and thus providing three separate places — Ohrstrom Library, Freidman Community Center, and Sheldon Library — with lights on every evening for studying and connection.”
— Rector Kathy Giles
Building Features
- Creates additional meeting and function space for schoolwide uses, with 2,000 square feet of event space and two conference rooms. This includes a large, multipurpose indoor gathering space with a timber structure and floor-to-ceiling views of the surrounding landscape.
- Offers a 1,500-square-foot terrace with eastern views of the playing fields for outdoor events and gatherings.
- Design incorporates green building principles and is currently targeting LEED Silver certification. Solar panels on the south-facing roof will offset about one-third of the building’s energy load.
- Immediately adjacent to the academic quadrangle, providing prospective families with better access to our admissions experience and School life.
- Provides collaborative and flexible office spaces for Admissions and Communications teams and allows for growth and change over time.
Reception desk with new pelican designed as a backdrop.
Multipurpose community gathering space, west view.
Second floor conference room.
Second floor seating area.
Sheldon Library
A renewed hub of student life
Designed by architect Ernest Flagg and built in the Beaux-Arts style, Sheldon was dedicated in 1902 as the School’s library and remains an iconic landmark today. For nearly a century, it provided spaces for scholarly study, quiet reflection and community gatherings. After Ohrstrom Library opened in 1991, Sheldon became home to the Admissions Office and other administrative departments.
Its centrality to several dormitories, the Friedman Community Center, Coit Dining Hall, and Ohrstrom Library, however, position it at the nexus of student life outside the academic quadrangle and therefore as essential space to return to student programming and activities.
As plans got underway to build the Fleischner Center, the School implemented in 2022 the first phase of bringing Sheldon back to student use by moving the offices of the Chaplaincy to the building’s garden level, as well as creating meeting and event space there for student affinity and alliance groups.
Beginning with the 2025-26 school year, Sheldon’s first and second floors will support academic and student life programming, with spaces for club meetings, teachers’ office hours, advising and tutoring sessions, and more. The offices of the Advanced Studies Program, a five-week summer program for New Hampshire high school juniors and seniors, will relocate to Sheldon as well, and the nearly 200 students who live and learn on campus every July will experience the inspiring atmosphere of Sheldon much as students will do during the school year.
Returning the entirety of Sheldon to student and faculty use will provide more than 9,000 square feet of space for student life and enhance the community life experience of current and future students.
Sheldon Library
The lower level of Sheldon was renovated and converted for student and faculty use in 2021.
The Fleischner Family Admissions Center will contribute to a stronger sense of community and belonging for current and future SPS students and reflect the School’s mission to “engage young people in a diverse, inclusive, and ethical community, dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in character and scholarship and inspired by the beauty and spirit of our Milville home.”
Alumni and parents who wish to support future student-centered initiatives like this can contact Scott Bohan ‘94, P’24, ‘25, chief advancement officer, at sbohan@sps.edu.