Greek Houses
 

I am kind of curious about Greek houses. My undergrad did not have any but I have been in some at Indiana U. Who do the chapters contract to build the houses? Is there a group that specifically designs greek houses? and what is the usual price range for greek house?

also, if anyone has anything that was/is a neat little feature of their chapter house, feel free to share. Like if they haev a room used just for meetings or just for ritual, etc. I'm very interested.

Houses range in all different sizes. The ones you saw at IU in the new greek village were probably predesigned. However, the houses on 3rd street are much older.

A neat feature of our current house which only sleeps 9 brothers is when a current graduate brother grew up in the 50s or 60s the two sons of the family were FIJIs, and when we moved in and were rennovating we found a metal sign in the attic that said "Not for College Days Alone" one of our popular mottos. So nothing special, but a neat little bit of history.

Greek Houses
 

Cunningham & Associates has designed many Greek houses. www.greekink.com

There's a firm based in I think Lawrence, KS that designed the KU SAE house and maybe a house at either Emporia State or Pittsburg State.

Pennington & Associates fundraises for fraternity/sorority houses. www.penningtonco.com

Re: Greek Houses
 

.....wow. These are absolutely AMAZING. The ADPi house at Southwest Texas State is...breathtaking.

Re: Greek Houses
 

Our houses were built specifically for Greeks back in the late 1800s to the 1940s. The sorority houses were all built with a living room, library, kitchen and dinning room on the first floor and a house mother's apartment on the secon floor. They have since all been renovated and look pretty different. For example, what is now the AST house was built by Pi Phi, the living room and waiting room are now bedrooms and the house mother's apt has been turned into about five bedrooms for women.

The fraternity houses were all built with House mother's apt, living room, kitchen, dinning room on the first floor/basement and then two floors of men's rooms. These still look pretty similar to how they were built, not many major changes.

Sig Chi, TKE and Phi Psi (also the old Beta and SAE houses) all had designated ritual/chapter rooms in their basements while the sororities did not, partly because the houses were so much smaller. We used our living room for chapter and such, just adujsted the furniture.

I think the best feature that houses can have, if you are going to have traditional bathrooms and not the group kind, is to make sure that the toilet, shower and sink are seperated. So you have the toliet room, the shower room and the sink out side, think of it like a hotel bathroom sort of...I'm not sure how to explain it, but when you have a traditional bathroom, where everything is enclosed in one room, it is totally holds up the bathroom line. Women (maybe men too, not sure) just take too much time. Seperating it out lets more people get in at a time, but this is really only relevant in smaller houses with a traditional bathroom. Our first house had one bathroom (4 women lived in) and it was always a traffic jam to get in there so this became a huge pet-peeve of mine. :)

Another thing is if you are building, I would keep bed rooms as far away as possible from lounge areas. It was always hard for the three women who lived on the first floor to sleep when some of us were hyper and playing in the living room till all hours.
http://www.sos.mtu.edu/ast/ this is one of my favorite AST houses because they have done a great job of preserving the history of the house.

I didn't even realize ours was on their website. It is the second one on the list - AOII at Georgia Southern University. I understand it was redecorated over the summer...

The ZTA house at Southern is also on there, it was brand new, and the envy of everyone on the row, when we hired the firm to build ours. It is the only one at the school with a commercial kitchen and they had to fight long and hard to get it.

https://www.omegafi.com/apps/homesit...ni_results.php

They don't have pictures of the houses sadly but they help with the raising of the money part...

BTW: I looked at Kansas and their sorority housing and they have gorgeous houses...and very old chapters.

Capstone is another developer. http://www.capstonecompanies.com/

The houses at Southeastern Louisiana are actually townhouses. Organizations had a choice in the size of their unit. The choices were 22-bed, 15-bed and 11-bed units, each with its own large meeting room and kitchen facilities. Each two-bedroom has its own full bath. All of the sororities are 22-bed.

The University of South Alabama has nice units too but I forgot who developed them. http://www.southalabama.edu/housing/greek.html

Capstone
 

Capstone did the Western Carolina project, too. American Campus Communities did the U. of Houston project, and maybe one other.

If you're ultimate goal is to get a Greek Row for your school, contact Capstone or go through a developer. If you're wanting a house for your group, contact Cunningham & Associates. A local firm might be able to help, too. BRW (can't remember what their initials stand for) is a firm with an office in College Station, TX. They did the Kappa Kappa Gamma renovation/addition, and they designed the Kappa Delta and Delta Gamma houses.