Overlooking Summit Street, a mysterious house sits atop the hill under the shadows of the water towers. A steep drive leads around to the back entrance. Few people go in. Few people come out. It's mysterious. Spooky. Secretive. But it's only a laboratory for biologists.

Wide rooms downstairs are home to rows of tables filled with experiments in progress. Graduate students observe snails devouring freshwater weeds in water pans. And if visitors linger long enough, they may even catch a glimpse of Momma Kitty, the pet cat.

This quiet scientific paradise is Agassiz House, headquarters for aquatic ecology studies. Remodeled in 1985, the house, (named after Harvard anatomist and creationist Louis Agassiz) with its large lab, is ideal for research.

The Agassiz is one of five Summit Street frame houses purchased by Kent State during a post-Depression push for expansion. Others included the Summit House (located where Satterfield Hall now stands), the Ward House (where the Kent police department stands), the Regional Campus House to the east and the Biology House to the west.

Fire destroyed the Regional Campus House in 1987, says Kent State facilities planner Gary Casper. The Biology House was torn down in August, leaving the Agassiz standing alone.

Before it came down, the Biology House was estimated to be the oldest of the three neighbors under the water towers. Robert Fildes, former facilities planner, says carpentry design on the house indicated it could have been built as early as 1850.

For the past 10 to 15 years, it served only as storage space for outdated science equipment ­ and a population of stray cats.

For many years, the Agassiz was equally dilapidated. When he first moved in 15 to 20 years ago, biology professor Dennis Cooke stuffed newspaper into wall cracks and wore feather-down slippers with his coat to stay warm during winter. The two-story building also had no fire escape. "There was a rope you were supposed to throw out the window," he says.

Cooke still keeps the slippers in his right desk drawer, but after $50,000 worth of renovation, he doesn't really need them. Private grants and money from the state legislature funded the remodeling.

Fildes predicts Agassiz will not stand much longer. "When they finish the addition to Cunningham Hall, the last of those buildings will come down," he says.

But Cooke says tearing Agassiz down wouldn't be wise. "This building is a valuable component of our department," Cooke says. "The operation of this building does not cost the university very much, and the square footage is just immense."