The main entrance, with its red brick Georgian gateway, and the gatehouse were built in 1963-64 as part of the Hermann Hall construction. Grover M. Hermann's gift of a new administration building included provisions for a new entrance to the campus. The gatehouse is manned around the clock by security personnel and student workers to provide information and help to visitors. The fence of treated pine, erected along the entrance drive in 1974, was the gift of O. Wayne Rollins, an Atlanta entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Berry trustee.

According to Henry Taylor, who did much construction for Berry from its beginning, the first main entrance to Berry was from Redmond Road behind Poland Hall in the faculty/staff residential area southwest of the Hoge Building.

For many years the main entrance, designated the "Gate of Opportunity," was on Highway 27 at the roadway leading to Hoge Building, which served as the administration building until the two-way entrance/exit was opened in 1963-64. In 1995 that main entrance (also called "residential entrance"), then bordered closely by Highway 27 and the Veteran's Memorial Highway (Rome bypass loop 1), was closed in the interest of traffic safety; and the main entrance with the red brick gateway was designated the Gate of Opportunity. Miss Berry called the Berry entrance the "Gate of Opportunity" because it would open two ways--"for those coming in to learn and those going out to share with the world what they've learned." As the formal entrance to Berry has been moved, so has the "Gate of Opportunity."