In his will, architect Michael Graves left three of his Princeton properties, including his Patton Avenue residence and studio, to Princeton University. But the University, where Mr. Graves taught for 39 years and was the Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture, has rejected the gift due to the expenses involved in its preservation and maintenance.

Instead, Kean University in Union, which is home to the recently opened Michael Graves College for architecture and design, will purchase the downtown property for $20 and use it for educational purposes.

“We were grateful to be able to consider the possibility of accepting Michael Graves’s properties, but concluded that we could not meet the terms and conditionsКassociated with the gift,” reads a statement issued by Princeton University.

According to a June 27 article in The New York Times, those conditions include preservation of Mr. Graves’s home and studio, in a 7,000-square-foot former warehouse located close to the Graves firm’s Nassau Street office. It was built nearly a century ago in a Tuscan vernacular style by Italian stonemasons who were helping to build the Princeton campus.

Mr. Graves died at his home March 12, 2015 at the age of 80. His will stated that the properties could be offered to another nonprofit organization should Princeton University not accept the gift. Kean University, with whom the architect worked to establish the program in his name, was at the top of his list.

The school’s President Dawood Farahi was quoted as saying the school would retrofit the buildings for about $300,000, and take on the annual $30,000-$40,000 maintenance costs. Kean’s board of trustees approved the $20 purchase of the buildings. The properties are valued at nearly $3.2 million.

Mr. Graves was internationally known and regarded as an important representative of new urbanism. He ran Michael Graves and Associates from an office on Nassau Street. Locally, he designed the expansion of the Arts Council of Princeton building on Witherspoon Street as well as several private residences.

Internationally, Mr. Graves’s firm designed buildings in Singapore, Japan, and Egypt. He was also involved in product design, creating a range of consumer products for home and office use that included a line of products sold by Target stores. Paralyzed from the waist down in 2003 as a result of a spinal cord infection, he renovated his home so that he could continue to live and work there. He became an advocate of using design to improve healthcare experiences for patients and clinicians.