The Buzz Ware Village Center (BWVC, a.k.a. “The Buzz”) is located at 2119 The Highway, Arden, Delaware, 19810. The building was renamed in 1973 in memory of a longtime trustee of Arden and Ardentown, an Ardencroft Director, a respected community leader and an excellent graphic designer, Hamilton D. “Buzz” Ware, who died in 1968.
The original Arden School, a public school, built of two surplus wooden World War I military buildings, was dedicated in 1925, but burned down in 1945. The three main rooms of the current structure were built in 1946 to 1947, and was considered somewhat innovative for schools of its time. It had radiant heat, abundant windows, and direct access to the outside from each classroom. A fourth room was added in 1950.
The Arden School was racially integrated two years before the U.S. Supreme Court decision barring segregation, and in spite of Delaware’s policy of segregation at that time. The Arden School had six grades from the late 1920s until 1969, when it was reduced to a Kindergarten building and finally closed, as a Public School, in 1973.
Since that time, the Center has been run by the BWVC Committee of the Town of Arden, with help from Ardentown and Ardencroft. If you would like to use “The Buzz” for an event, please use the contact form to get in touch with the building manager. Availability can be researched using the online calendar.