Professor Ario Pardee raised funds to build a Victorian Gothic structure to house his science department, but less than a decade after its completion the building burned. It was rebuilt in its original form in 1879, a Second Empire design in limestone, sandstone, and granite. Three floors and an attic in height, it terminates in a mansard roof punctuated with pedimented dormers and, in good Second Empire fashion, it ends in two defined pavilions while the center section rises to a heavily bracketed mansard. Pardee Hall burned again in 1897, losing its interiors although its stone walls survived. The fire was deliberately set by a professor angry that his contract was not to be renewed—his field: ethics and moral philosophy.