Since the 1980s, a design using an image similar to a Jack Daniels bottle has decorated the elevator door on Larch Hall’s eighth floor.

The bottle said, “Emerson House, Iowa State University, quality gentlemen of Iowa State University.”

To some residents, such as Emerson House President Paul Duncan, the design symbolized the floor.

“If you said ‘Emerson,’ people would think immediately of Jack Daniels elevator doors,” said Duncan, sophomore in transportation logistics.

However, the Emerson Jack Daniels bottle is no more. The elevator door was painted white about three weeks ago.

Emerson House was changed to a “wellness” floor this year, meaning it’s a substance-free house. Wellness floors also try to promote a healthful diet, good study habits and physical fitness.

Larch Hall Director Brad Knapp said in addition to Emerson being a wellness house, several issues made the design change necessary.

“For me, the door had to be changed because it was a violation of trademark,” he said.

Also, Knapp said Iowa State and residence house names can’t be associated with anything alcohol-related.

Knapp said the best solution for Emerson was to have a new design, but that is no longer an option.

Emerson is only the first house to experience a new Department of Residence policy mandating that all floors with elevators have no unique designs.

Director of Residence Randy Alexander said the department is not going to paint all elevator doors immediately, and it might be years before some doors are repainted.

“Whatever is on the door now can stay for the time being,” he said. “They’re not going to disappear any time soon.”

Elevator doors will be painted as other parts of the hallway are being painted, he said. The Department of Residence has a painting rotation for the residence halls.

“As we renovate areas and paint hallways, we will repaint doors and outlet covers,” Alexander said.

Although current designs may stay for now, no new ones will be created. Alexander said the company that maintains the elevators in residence halls requested that the they not be painted by students.

“We have a couple of cases with elevator doors where people have accidentally dumped paint down the elevators,” he said.

While residents can’t repaint elevators, murals still can be painted on the walls, Alexander said.

“We think there is enough wall space that you don’t need to paint elevators,” he said.

The Department of Residence is reviewing the mural policies, and Alexander said he wants to have a consistent mural policy in place soon for residents to follow.

As for the painting on Emerson’s elevator, Alexander said it had nothing to do with the plan to repaint elevator doors. He said he had not heard about Emerson’s design.

Duncan said the residents did not learn they couldn’t paint a new design until after janitors had painted the doors white.

“We thought it was more than a coincidence,” he said. “Almost everybody hates the fact that this rule came about and we can’t paint the doors anymore.”

Katie Elbert, vice president of Emerson House, said she liked the painting, but she understood why administration wanted to change it.

“If we had an alcohol bottle on the door, that wouldn’t give the best representation of a wellness floor,” said Elbert, sophomore in psychology.

Duncan said he wishes that other solutions could have been explored, instead of instituting an across-the-board ban on elevator designs.

“We could have sat down with hall directors and the Department of Residence and had constructive ideas instead of banning something that means a lot to every floor,” he said.