The Hall was designed by Dr. Thomas Veal of Columbia, and, later, internal design elements were added by Italian painter Alfredo Lanzer. Veal’s design for the Hall would have been considered trendy in the 1850s and was even appreciated at the time in much the same way that Art Deco or Usonian architecture were appreciated nearly a century later. As Rev. J.S. Bonner put it in the speech he delivered during the laying of the Hall’s cornerstone:
“Every age and every country has its peculiar style of architecture, modified by general circumstances, but especially by the intelligence of the people. Just as civilization and refinement advance, so are the higher, and neater, and better styles of architecture introduced.”
Indeed, the Italian Renaissance Revival style employed by Veal permeated construction philosophies of the period. From Mount Vernon to the White House, buildings all over the United States were constructed in the same style. In South Carolina, the style had already been employed at some of the earliest buildings at Furman and the chapel of USC Spartanburg, and even closer to Erskine, at the courthouse in Abbeville and Cokesbury College. Veal specifically found a source for his designs in the work of Andreas Palladio, and the Hall consequently resembles the Villa Porto and the Villa Capra, and Veal used Palladio’s geometric formulas to create the symmetry of the Hall’s layout. At its base the hall is 40′ x 50′ and bears 14 symmetrically placed windows. The interior was designed to match the exterior positions of the windows on both floors, including the flanking fireplaces on the second floor. Furthermore, the high walls and interior painting both indicate the influence of Palladio.