The weather outside was frightful—okay, maybe it was just cold—on a recent night outside Warren Towers, but inside, a friendly competition was heating up. 

For more than 20 years, faculty-in-residence Bryan Stone and his wife, Cheryl, have been hosting weekly open hours in their Warren Towers apartment, complete with an abundance of snacks and a home-away-from-home vibe, where students can unwind and watch and gossip about the latest episode of TV shows like The Bachelor. This particular night was a bit different: a competition that pitted Stone, E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism, School of Theology associate dean for academic affairs, and Center for Practical Theology codirector, against students Hannah Miletello (Sargent’22) and Nina Wilson (Sargent’22) to build the most elaborately decorated gingerbread house.

How might decades of wisdom and life experience match up against the free spirit and agility of youth? 

The rules were simple. In addition to a liberal supply of icing, sprinkles, candy canes, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, each team was supplied with a stock gingerbread house kit to manipulate as they saw fit. In addition, each team could bring outside accoutrements to adorn their houses—provided they were edible.

Stone’s vision for his gingerbread edifice was singularly his own: creating a confectionary copy of Warren Towers. With his wife lending a helping hand, his first move involved some knife work, as he set about sawing off the house’s eaves so he could craft a gingerbread box much like the storefronts, parking garage, dining hall, and lobby spaces that form the the residence hall base. As for the towers themselves, Stone mashed together several packages of Rice Krispie Treats he already had on hand for snacking during Bachelor viewing.

Miletello and Wilson looked to the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic The Great Gatsby for inspiration for their gingerbread house. The two were determined to create as opulent a Gatsby mansion as jelly beans and colored icing would allow. Wilson meticulously picked through bottles and packets of edible decorations to introduce some non-holiday colors to the details around the house: blue candy for the water around the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock and a single orange sprinkle for the carrot nose of the snowman who would serve as this gingerbread mansion’s Jay Gatsby.

“I feel l’m on The Great British Baking Show,” Wilson said early in the house-building exercise. “I’m more stressed about this than I am about finals.” 

Her partner nodded agreement. “Same,” said Miletello. “I have a physics exam tomorrow.”

As the first half-hour passed, structure became an increasingly urgent issue for both teams. Unbeknownst to the BU Today competition organizers, the icing that comes in the stock gingerbread house kits purchased from Target sets neither quickly nor strongly. Major frustration for the architects. This meant the students had to pay close attention to sagging roofs shingled meticulously with—but weighed down by—Cinnamon Toast Crunch. For Stone, it meant having to fortify the gingerbread base a second time after the initial build was looking a little, well, wobbly. 

“We’ve got some major structural problems. Major!” Stone said as he wrestled with his construction. “I think it’s faithful to the architecture of Warren Towers.”

With these handicaps in mind, BU Today kindly looked the other way as Stone next shifted his attention to strengthening the three towers perched atop the gingerbread base. At first, toothpicks were deployed to ensure that the Rice Krispie Treat structures remained sturdy, upright, and plumb. Eventually, however, it was time to bring out the big guns—takeout chopsticks—to do the job.

After 90 frenetic, nail-biting minutes of feverish activity, two very different gingerbread house concepts emerged. Miletello and Wilson’s finished Gatsby mansion was festooned with gumdrop siding, candy garlands along the eaves, and a door made out of Twizzlers. In addition to the Gatsby snowman and the green light at the end of the dock, the student team created a stylish red 1920s automobile using Oreos (also from the Stones’ treats stash) for the wheels. 

Stone’s gingerbread rendition of Warren Towers was an unmistakable replica, save for the gum drop and jelly bean adornment. 

“You can do the ordinary gingerbread house, or you can do something that’s a monument to Boston University. I think it’s a pretty accurate rendition,” Stone said, admiring his finished work. “Accuracy, integrity, and artistic vision—all wrapped in one. I think that’s why they should vote for me.”

“People should vote for us because we did a better job than Bryan,” said a tongue-in-cheek Miletello. “We gave the best version of what some call the greatest American novel that we could.”

Many thanks to Bryan and Cheryl Stone for hosting and participating in this lighthearted holiday event, and to Hannah Miletello and Nina Wilson for taking time away from studying to engage in some friendly holiday competition.