On July 15, 1975, six brave students and a small group of faculty and staff launched St. Stephen’s University. The new Liberal Arts university bought a rundown hotel, the Park Hotel, formerly residences for immigrant workers at the Ganong Bros. chocolate factory just down the road.  It was renamed Park Hall, the centrepiece of SSU’s campus. In the Italian Renaissance Revival style, with an impressive interior four-storey stairway of black walnut, the building dates from the time of Canadian Confederation in 1867 when it was built as a family home for a wealthy shipbuilder.