At Home at Hollybush

Philanthropy often can be realized in unexpected ways. Daniel J. Clements III didn’t attend Rowan University as a student, but more than 60 years later, he still remembers his family’s profound connection to campus.

As the grandson of the University’s second president, Dr. Edgar F. Bunce, Dan spent frequent childhood visits in the Whitney House, now known as Hollybush mansion.

The home played various roles in the University’s history, serving as a women’s dormitory as well as a historic meeting place for U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin.

It was also a presidential residence that holds a powerful kind of nostalgia for someone like Dan Clements.

His mother grew up in the home, returning after college and dating Dan’s father, a young Navy officer. After Dan was born at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, she brought him to the Whitney House as she waited to move to a new duty station with his father.

“I remember little things like jumping on the beds upstairs and my grandmother having summer dinners in the sunroom with her favorite Mexican-styled china,” said Clements. “Since my mother actually grew up there, her stories have become part of my own memories as well.”

When his father visited for a weekend date, he would always place his naval officer’s hat on the Samuel Whitney statue by the front doors. He’d also spend time with Mrs. Bunce on the steps of the grand staircase where they’d tell jokes and stories into the night, probably sipping a neat, short nightcap and being careful not to wake Dr. Bunce.

“I can picture them sitting here,” said Clements, standing at the bottom of the staircase, “and all the pieces are still here. I can even picture my dad leaving his hat on the statue just so. He loved a good laugh.”

As part of a military family, Dan moved numerous times; home for him, his mother and his four siblings was wherever his father was stationed. Through high school, he attended nine different schools, including three second grades. After graduating from Notre Dame during the Vietnam War, Dan decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a Navy officer.

“Close to my graduation, it was very likely I would be drafted, so I took the test to be an officer and served as a Supply Corps officer just as my father did,” said Clements. “He swore me in and even commissioned me.”

After an honorable discharge from the Navy due to a shipboard accident that almost cost him his life, Dan decided to pursue something he loved since he was a child—and that was architectural design.

He joined a firm in Columbus, Ohio and it was in Columbus where he met his husband, Steve. Together, they have established The Hollybush Restoration Fund to preserve the home’s architectural integrity and historical and sentimental significance, while Dan has also included the fund in his own estate plans.

“Steve and I both want to support our passions as much as we can, but we also want to make sure we can continue that support after we’re gone,” said Clements. “Right now, Columbus is where we call home, but growing up, I never had a true hometown. Glassboro was one of the closest places I had to that, and it’s important to us to help preserve the home that meant so much to me and my family.”

As an architectural designer and veteran, Clements urges the community to help preserve one of Glassboro’s most historic buildings. And as someone who remembers having summer fiestas in the sunroom as a young boy, he hopes a treasured part of his past will always remain part of a growing Glassboro’s future.