concerns over the ability of the first-floor lecture rooms to accommodate enough students for large lectures, and objections from the families of the professors that the space was required for entertaining, students rarely had access to the rooms. In addition to the professors and their families, in the pre-Civil War days the Pavilions also housed the slaves of the professors. While University students were prohibited by the University's Enactments from bringing their personal slaves with them, professors could and did own slaves, who were quartered in Pavilion or Hotel cellars or in outbuildings. In one case, Lewis Commodore, a slave owned by the university, was granted accommodations within the Rotunda itself, only to be turned out by the Board of Visitors two years later. The Rotunda annex and fire of 1895 As the size of the student body increased, the Rotunda was extended with a structure called the Annex, also known as "New Hall," on its north side in 1853. The Annex, which extended from the original north façade of the Rotunda, added about of classroom and meeting space, including a Public Hall that seated 1200 people. In 1895, the Rotunda was entirely gutted by a disastrous fire that started in faulty electrical wiring in the Public Hall of the Annex. University students saved what was, for them, the most important item within the Rotunda — a life-size likeness of Mr. Jefferson carved from marble that was given to the University by Alexander Galt in 1861; the students also rescued a portion of the books of the university library from the Dome Room, as well as various scientific instruments from the classrooms in the Annex. Shortly after the fire, the faculty drew up a recommendation to the Board of Visitors, recommending a program of rebuilding that called for the reconstruction of the Rotunda and the replacement of the lost classroom space of the Annex with a set of buildings at the south end of the Lawn. After the Rotunda fire: Stanford White buildings Following the burning of the Rotunda in 1895, the firm of McKim, Mead, and White and its architect Stanford White was hired to rebuild the Rotunda and to create new academic buildings to compensate for the loss of the Rotunda annex. White created three academic buildings, Cocke Hall, Rouss Hall, and Cabell Hall (now Old Cabell Hall) at the base of the Lawn, enclosing the southern view