The old ADPi house is such a different style from the other gorgeous houses at OM, and I'm pretty sure that it was much like that when the chapter was active. I wonder if that boxy, office building design was a deterrant to PNMs before the chapter closed.

There were a few of these at Illinois: houses that were some awesome "modern" style when they were built in the 50's or 60's, and looked ugly next to more traditional houses a few decades later.

The Ole Miss ADPi Chapter closed while I was in Grad School there. I have heard that this house was definitely not an advantage during formal recruitment. It definitely departed from the campus trend and it seems not favorably.

Is there a mandate somewhere regarding columns on Southern Greek homes? :confused:

You are confused? It is OLE MISS, for gawd's sake!! What else would you expect? You can't get more Southern traditional than that!

And yes, the old ADPi house was just butt ugly and seriously out of place on this campus. It did not help that chapter a bit. Let it stay an administration building.

@Cheerio & @thetalady: Something now forgotten is that the Union Army led by General Sherman burned Oxford to the ground. The only places left were used to house the Union Troops and the University. Many of those surviving places were of the Antebellum Greek-Revival style. Women's GLO's did not arrive at Ole Miss until the 1890's, and then went subrosa during the time that the Mississippi Legislature banned GLO's entirely. When the GLO's began building facilities these homes were based on the impressive local surviving Greek Revival architecture and other gracious homes. Architecture is a form of market signaling by the builder/owner.

The honors college/ex ADPi house isn't attractive at all (reminds me of the fraternity quad at Carnegie-Mellon) but the columns bore me to tears. They all look alike to me.

I've read about the anti-fraternity legislation, but I didn't know that Greek life there just went underground instead of inactive.

Didn't the sororities have lodges before they had full housing?

@33girl: The lack of architectural diversity in the columns and facades is truly sad, it's very reminiscent of McMansion Architecture to me except the omission any of of the Norman French details in the construction.

@ LXA SE285: Answer on lodge question; you know I'm not sure. I think I knew the answer to that 20 years ago, but not today. In some cases the houses you see are the second facilities built by individual chapters here, one I think is the Chi Omega house.

I know the AOII house did not have columns until a major capital campaign was undertaken to alter the facade and add columns. Pi Beta Phi did the same.

On the other hand, it's perfectly located (as far as I can tell) and it's amazing what you can do with exterior rehabs. I would think that would have to be part of the expansion package. The size is probably reasonably in the ballpark, but it is remarkably ugly. Does the university own the houses or is the university leasing from ADPi? This is where it gets into the financial behind the scenes stuff and that's WAY beyond my pay grade.

An earlier poster said the houses were sold to the university. And keep in mind, if they have depreciated the houses out, then they could raze the buildings and sel/lease the lots to the new group to build on. In fact, they could raze the buildings no matter what if they wanted to go thate route.

Ew. I violently dislike mid-century modern style. I think it lacks the timelessness or character of other styles.

It is unfortunate if the ADPi chapter suffered from the lack of foresight of those adults who selected their house office-building style architecture in the first place. Hope I'm not being too harsh, but what were they thinking? A good mid-century modern home in the right setting can be fabulous, but not on Sorority Row at Ole Miss. I wish much success to whichever group is chosen to colonize next.

I don't usually post, but do read the threads. I couldn't help but throw out the information that I know. I went to Ole Miss and two of my girlfriends were ADPi's when it all went down. There are two things here I thought I would point out because I doubt anyone would know.

(1) Yes, the house was a big problem. What's worse is that the pictures you see of it now is from the intended back side. As I was told by them when ADPi build that house the University was planning on starting a second Sorority Row so they built the house to face the "new" sorority row. I'm not even sure I've stopped and looked at it from the front, but that is why it does have a strange look. Of course I think either way the style doesn't match, but the view is technically backwards.

(2) As they told me part of the problem was that nationals came in and tried to change recruitment to match nationals and not Ole Miss. I never really knew what they meant by that and if that was totally true, but that is how it was relayed to me for several years. I'm sure there were several other reasons, but I thought I would throw in my two cents from women who were there at the time.

Hope you don't mind the crash, but I couldn't help but try to at least tell what I've been told by women who were there.