With its grand staircase, high ceiling and wooden beams, this dorm might remind you of a ski lodge when you first enter. Since its renovation in 2007, Charles Pratt Hall has been Amherst’s largest first-year residence hall, housing about 100 new students each year, mostly in double rooms. The building also includes the College’s Writing Center, where students can go for workshops and advice on crafting their academic papers. For half a century prior to the renovation, however, this structure was called the Pratt Museum, and it held the College’s natural history collection (now displayed in the Beneski building). And before that, dating all the way back to its opening in 1885, it was the Pratt Gymnasium. So who was Charles Pratt? An 1879 graduate, and the first alumnus to endow a building for Amherst.