Stager Hall was constructed in 1900 - 1902 and was known as the Science Building. The architect was C. Emlen Urban. He remains Lancaster’s most important homegrown architect. He designed the building in a classic Beaux-Arts style. A few years earlier Emlen Urban designed Lancaster’s landmark Watt and Shand Store with related Beaux-Arts influences.
In the 1950s this Science Building was refaced in red brick, to repeat the campus’ Colonial Revival aesthetic. By this time the building was named Stahr Hall. In 1984 extensive renovations included the glass curtain wall which directs the building’s main entry inward toward the campus, rather than outward toward College Avenue.
Today Emlen Urban’s original design of this building is often unknown. His architectural achievement, here, is hidden behind red brick and tall trees. But his Beaux-Arts front-door surround survives, mostly unseen and unknown behind holly trees.