Students shown historic rooms and artifacts
After USC President Harris Pastides tweeted an open invitation to students to tour his home, the doorbell didn’t stop ringing.
“I’ll give you a tour. Just ring the bell,” the tweet read, and ring the bell they did.
The line stretched past the threshold of the president’s house and onto the Horseshoe, as snowed-in students who had tired of eating Easy Mac and watching Netflix in their rooms waited eagerly to see inside.
Guests were given the grand tour, starting in the study. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls were packed with books from the university’s collection, as well as the Pastides’ own favorites.
“The old leather books you wouldn’t want to read belong to the university,” Pastides told a tour group, “but books like the Bob Marley biography are mine.”
The downstairs dining room looks out onto the Horseshoe, where, according to Pastides, students will come and knock on the window while they’re having dinner.
“Students will come up and knock and say ‘We’re hungry!’” Pastides laughed, rubbing his stomach. “We ignore them.”
But the house is much more than where Pastides lives with his wife, Patricia, he said; it is a piece of history.
Andrew Lloyd Weber once played the piano in the study. Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy slept in the bedrooms upstairs. A visor once worn by Steve Spurrier sits on a table in a room filled with Gamecock memorabilia. Pope John Paul II rested in a chair on the second floor.
“People ask, ‘Was the pope undressed here?’” Pastides said. “I don’t know, and I really wouldn’t like to think about it.”
Students weaved in and out of the rooms on each floor, where they caught a glimpse into the president’s day-to-day life. The only part of the house left out of the tour was the president’s apartment because, Pastides said, it wasn’t made up properly.
The Gamecock-themed room on the third floor was a crowd favorite. The sign above the mirror read “Man Cave” and newspaper articles about beating Clemson and winning championships hung on each wall. A football signed by Barbara and George H.W. Bush sat just under a jersey with Pastides’ name printed on the back.
The tour ended in the JFK bedroom, named for the then-senator who delivered the 1957 commencement address. But because of his notoriously bad back, Kennedy pulled the bedding off of the bed and slept on the floor.
“Is it the Kennedy bed?” Pastides said. “Well, the bed was in the room, but he slept on the floor.”
Pastides told students they were welcome to roam around the house before leaving, but they did have to leave. “I don’t want to be getting ready for bed later and hear somebody say ‘Hi Dr. Pastides!’” he joked.
And when it was all over, Pastides asked the question the students were waiting to hear: “So who wants a delay tomorrow?”