Bob Hawke, then a young law student, tore off his clothes and frolicked nude in its ornamental fishpond at midnight. Margaret Mead, who visited in the 1960s, would no doubt have written a diverting anthropological case study about the nocturnal soak; instead, she met the man who would become her intellectual nemesis. And, speaking of Midnight (Oil), Peter Garrett, rock star, environmentalist and politician, received an honorary doctorate there.

For decades, University House was the collegial and ceremonial heart of the Australian National University. But since it was damaged in the 2020 hailstorm, that heart suffered a cardiac arrest. The heritage-listed building sat silent and empty, home only to possums.

Renovated and refurbished, University House will officially reopen on Friday 14 August, in time for the ANU to mark its 80^th birthday.

“It’s been a hole in the life of the campus,” Professor Peter Kanowski, Master of University House, said. “It’s so wonderful to be back and open again.”

University House was officially opened by the then-Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, in 1954.

ANU’s founders wanted somewhere academics, postgraduate students, and visiting scholars could meet, eat, drink, talk, and socialise, Professor Kanowski said.

In the mid-century capital – then still a small city of only 30,000 people – University House was “the heart of academic and social activity in Canberra in a way that’s a little hard to imagine now we’re a bigger city with so much more diversity and a range of places to meet and gather”, Professor Kanowski said.

“It’s been a place where many people experience ANU for the first time – new academics coming to jobs here, new families moving to Canberra.” He has heard stories from “people who were children when they first came here, people whose parents met and proposed to each other here, history written into families and friendships in so many ways… The university now has the capacity to offer that again.”

Designed by professor of architecture Brian Lewis, it was the most expensive public building in Canberra at the time. It won the 1953 Sulman Medal for Architectural Merit, the same prize that Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House was to win four decades later.

Intended to showcase Australian art, its collection includes works by Arthur Boyd, John Brack, John Olsen and Clarice Becke, while the Great Hall features Leonard French’s 18-panel mural Regeneration.

But in January 2020, hail shattered the roof, cracking tens of thousands of tiles. During a rainstorm a few weeks later, rain poured in, destroying the fire system, and the building was flooded from the roof to the basement. University House was evacuated.

The COVID pandemic stalled plans to repair it, while removing asbestos and lead added two more years to the restoration.

The renovation has taken four and a half years; works involved 1,500 workers, and cost $121 million (of which insurers paid $110 million).

Heritage architects Lovell Chen designed and oversaw the restoration, and Hindmarsh Construction Australia did the building work.

“We needed to take the building apart before we could put it together and start the restoration,” Alex Morgan, project manager for Hindmarsh, said. “It’s an entirely new building, essentially.”

Heritage architect Audrey Ong said specialist tradespeople restored parquetry flooring, leather wall panels, and acoustic ceiling tiles, incorporating salvaged material wherever possible. Eighteen hotel rooms have been faithfully restored to the mid-century aesthetic, and others modernised. The building is now “probably the only fully electric hotel in the country”, Professor Kanowski thinks.

“What visitors will see is a building that looks as splendid as it did in 1954, but behind the scenes would be unrecognisable in that era,” Professor Kanowski said. “We’ve got a building that’s fit for the next 70 years, completely fitted out for the future.”

The bar reopened this week, and Professor Kanowski watched people moving the furniture around, and settling themselves back into familiar spaces.

They were, he said, “just reoccupying the building”.