In the earliest days of Lowell House, then Master Julian Lowell Coolidge faced a predicament that many of his modern-day Master counterparts say they can scarcely imagine--a vacancy problem.

The obstacle then was so great that in order to fill the newly constructed House--built for no more than 220--Coolidge was forced to open the House's doors to students who were not undergraduates at the College but could afford the rooming fees.

More than 60 years later, Harvard receives applications in excess of 16,000 each year and Lowell--now the third largest House on campus--houses 433 students. But despite the College's best efforts to maintain a stable undergraduate population of about 6,400, masters and residents say the Houses feel more crowded than ever.

And to some extent, they are.

Never before have so many House residents lived "outside" of their actual Houses, in places like DeWolfe, Claverly Hall, or the Jordan Co-ops. Originally used for other purposes, these overflow buildings are now crucial, masters say, to helping alleviate severe space concerns within the Houses.

With blueprints for a 13th House unlikely to materialize anytime soon, the College says masters and residents will simply have to make do with crowded dining halls, a lack of common spaces, and, in every suite, an extra roommate or two.

Cramped Quarters

A larger-than-expected enrollment in Currier House this fall chipped away at the Quad's reputation as the land of spacious singles, causing "painful, crowded situations" says Master William A. Graham.

In addition to housing a handful of Currier residents in one of the former Jordan Co-op buildings on Walker Street, the House also "crowded" a number of single rooms with two people. Although he says Currier annually is assigned more students than it can technically house, Graham says this was the first time in his eight years as master that Currier residents were forced to live in Jordan.

"I don't think anyone would doubt we're overcrowded," he says. "Most of us feel it is a fairly serious issue in terms of quality of life."

Quarters are equally cramped in Cabot House, where Master James Ware says an administrative error in the formu- FULL HOUSEMasters struggle to maintain quality of Houselife in an era of space constraints.la for assigning students to Cabot over the pasttwo years resulted in the House being as much as25 students over its official cap of 360 students.As a result, Cabot has also had to rely on theJordan overflow facilities, using space notoccupied by Currier residents for a handful ofdisplaced students.

In the case of John Winthrop House, Master PaulD. Hanson says the problem has manifested itselfnot just in unusually tight living quarters butalso in a dearth of common areas and eating space.

The dining hall is often so filled up that somepeople have to sit on the floor, Hanson says.

In Lowell House, Kristin M. Branson '00 wasforced to keep her desk in the fireplace and couldonly close her bedroom door after moving her chairon top of a bed in her two-room suite. The tightquarters were at least one reason that herroommate moved off-campus earlier this year.

"It's a good size single, but for a double, it[was] small and cramped," Branson says.

A Problem of Perception