Private Funds Sought for UCI Chancellor’s Home

Private donors are being sought to finance construction of an estimated $3-million residence for UC Irvine’s chancellor on the campus’s highest hilltop, university officials and supporters said this week.

Contributions and pledges of $500,000 have been received for the home, and the balance will be collected through a committee whose members will be asked to donate $100,000 each. The Builder’s Committee, to be chaired by developers Timothy Strader and Kathryn G. Thompson, also will help to design the house, Strader said Tuesday.

University administrators indicated that they expect criticism from some quarters about the non-academic use of funds, but they contend that a suitable home and entertaining facility for the chancellor is critical to UCI’s attainment of international stature.

Irvine is the only UC school without a chancellor’s residence on or next to campus. The home would be the first chancellor’s residence in the state to be built with private funds.

Chancellor Jack W. Peltason, 65, is thought to be ideally positioned to shepherd the project without taint of potential self-interest because he will retire before the home is completed. If the project is approved by Peltason and UCI’s governing body, the University of California Board of Regents, the house could be constructed within 2 years, project officials said.

While no plans have been drawn for the residence, to be called University House, it is expected to include a family apartment of about 5,000 to 8,000 square feet, with additional space for guest rooms, banquets and catering facilities. In addition, it will have a parking area.

An extra element of caution also has been injected into the planning process because of a scandal involving Robert Huttenback, former chancellor of UC Santa Barbara, who was convicted last July of embezzling $250,000 in university money to remodel his private home.

“No one can make the accusation that we are trying to build something for our own personal benefit,” Peltason said. “There have always been plans for a university house on campus, but heretofore, the infrastructure wasn’t in place and it didn’t seem timely.

To Serve ‘Entire University’

Peltason also noted that “this is a facility that all UC campuses have and (one) that will serve the faculty and the entire university.”

Peltason and his wife, Suzanne, live in a house that they own in the campus community of University Hills. They now host university functions in the University Club on campus or in rented hotel facilities. A university-owned residence formerly occupied by founding Chancellor Daniel G. Aldrich Jr. until his retirement in 1985 is located in Newport Beach, 6 miles from the campus, and is now being rented out by UCI.

Strader, who described the project at the UCI Foundation Board of Overseers and Directors’ quarterly meeting Tuesday, said a pool of 25 to 30 donors will be assembled within the next 6 months. Any potential criticism can be defused “because this is all private money,” said Strader, chairman of the Legacy Cos. and president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

‘Time Has Come’

“This is a project whose time has come,” he said. “As the campus has come of age, the need has grown for a facility like University House to provide a meeting place for exchange between the university and the community. It is also an important element in attracting a new chancellor (when Peltason retires) and providing a focus for the campus.”

Members of the Builders Committee will visit chancellors’ homes at UC campuses in Los Angeles and San Diego for comparison, Strader said. The UCLA chancellor’s residence, built on campus in 1930, is 8,135 square feet, according to a UCLA spokesman. And UCSD Chancellor Richard Atkinson lives in a home next to campus that was purchased about 25 years ago, according to a UC spokesman. No information was available on its size.

The 2.5-acre parcel designated for the UCI chancellor’s residence is part of the university’s 1,000-acre land endowment. The property, at Los Trancos Drive and Locke Street, was set aside because it commands a panoramic view of the campus below and of Irvine and the Santa Ana Mountains to the east.

“Historically, chancellors’ houses have been built by the regents,” said John Miltner, UCI vice chancellor for university advancement. “This is the first time a residence will be built by private funds.”

UC policy requires chancellors to live in university-provided houses unless they obtain permission to live elsewhere, as in the case of Peltason. Chancellors’ homes on each of the other eight UC campuses were built or bought before the mid-1960s. UCI, which opened in 1965, purchased the residence in Newport Beach because at that time there were few homes in the area. Also, campus construction funds were designated for classroom and administration buildings.

UC Senior Vice President William Baker, who was asked by UC President David Gardner to assist in the planning of the UCI University House, said, “Raising the money is up to each campus.

“The policy is, it would involve no state money at all.”