About Campus Resources

The Principia College campus covers 2,600 acres with over four miles of bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The unique bluff prairies on campus are a registered Illinois Natural Heritage Landmark. The campus has received national recognition for its unique design. A noted San Francisco architect, Bernard Maybeck, designed the original buildings for the Elsah campus. These special buildings include the Chapel and six of the eleven student houses. Principia College was designated on April 19, 1993, as a National Historic Landmark for its fine Maybeck architecture. The Maybeck-designed buildings at Principia represent the final phase of Bernard Maybeck’s career and are considered his finest expression of collegiate design, drawing from colonial American, medieval, and American vernacular stone building traditions.

Students live either in single-gender houses or on separate halls or floors of the same house. There are also cottages which are used as housing for non-traditional students and/or special programs.