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Originally posted by GreekGuide
Anyone out there know of any cool history or unique stories behind some of their chapter house histories. I love hearing those stories.
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Okay, here is some info about the houses at U of I:
Due to a lack of university housing, almost every single Greek house added an addition in the late '60s. If you look carefully at the houses, you can pick out the addition on most of them, but some of them are so blatant they are ugly. Phi Mu and ZBT come to mind under this category.
About six houses have two fronts. There was originally going to be a street running through what is now a park, so these houses built their front enterances facing what would have been the street. It was never built, so they all use the other sides, on second or third street, for their enterances. However, the side facing the park is much prettier in almost every case, and the doors now used as their back open up into magnificent foyers.
When the old Acacia house burnt down, they built a new one with financial support from their national organization. The house was huge, with elevators, private rooms, more bathrooms than a group of guys could possible need, and no expense was spared. Needless to say, they could not keep up with the payments, and they had to sell it to the university. It is now the library information sciences building, but you can still see "Acacia" etched in the stones out front.
The University doesn't allow crests inside houses to be destroyed if a new group moves in. Instead, they must be preserved for historical purposes, so you can see old crests and coats of arms in different houses. Also, several houses are registered as historical landmarks under the groups that built them, not the groups that currently occupy them.
The Gamma Phi Beta house has couches from the set of "Gone With the Wind."