Historic Fraternity/Sorority House Floor Plans?

[DTD Alum]

This is admittedly a question out of the far left. I am an alumnus of Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and throughout my entire life I’ve had a strong interest in historic houses, particularly from a design standpoint. In fact, I work in real estate and do independent research on historic structures on the side. I was wondering if it is at all possible to obtain floor plans of some of the Greek houses at schools that are known for their huge fraternity and sorority houses (like Ole Miss, UT, Indiana, Washington, University of Southern California, Bama, etc). I’ve seen a couple online, but they were for new construction…I’d love to see the layout for some of the older homes that have been added to over the years. The “holy grail” so to speak would be floor plans that show the additions and renovations to the original structures over time, particularly if the home at one point served as a historic house.

Does anybody know of a possible way to acquire some of these? If you work for nationals and have an idea of who to contact, feel free to PM me and I’ll give in-depth information about my identity, intentions, etc. I’d also be willing to give a small donation to the housing fund to cover the scanning or digging required.

[Sister Havana]

The Indiana University chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha has a floor plan of their house on their website - it is on this page (scroll down)

[DTD Alum]

Originally Posted by Sister Havana

The Indiana University chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha has a floor plan of their house on their website - it is on this page (scroll down)

Thanks! What a great find.

[Barbie's_Rush]

I think you''ll be hard pressed to find floor plans for sorority houses for security reasons.

[DTD Alum]

Originally Posted by Barbie's_Rush

I think you''ll be hard pressed to find floor plans for sorority houses for security reasons.

It's understandable. I found a couple online (one KD and one AOPi, don't know the schools off the top of my head but have them written down) that had the sorority floor plans online, but they were both either new construction or recently completed. I bet that a lot of sororities would not be willing to give plans out and that fraternities would be more likely to do it. But I figured I might as well ask.

[IrishLake]

I would check with local planning/auditor/building etc offices. I would think that even on a college campus, they have to submit as-builts or site plans to the local appropriate offices. I have found historical site plans for buildings dating back into the 19th century in those kinds of offices, just takes some digging.

[Titchou]

As far as my GLO is concerned, we don't keep that sort of information nationally and probably wouldn't give it out, for security reasons, if we did. I would think the best idea would be the local city or county building permit office or perhaps fire department.

[oldu]

In my library, I have an 8 page publication of the new DKE house at Syracuse University dated April 1903 complete with plans & pictures. I think the house is still in use today. There is also a publication of the very beautiful Phi Gam house at Penn dating around 1915 (which I don't have) that was listed on one of the rare book sites. If you go to one of the rare book sites (ABE, Amazon, etc.) and type in the names of the various groups you might find some others. Those are the only two I know of, although I seem to remember running across something on your very nice DTD at Purdue somewhere. Good luck.

[oldu]

I also just discovered that I have a book entitled "Designing & Building the Chapter House" by Oswold C. Hering and published by the Banta Press in 1931. Also, I found a couple of old Architectural Student's Thesis from 1917 for the design of a fraternity house. That could also be a resource. Several of the fraternities published housing manuals and I seem to remember plans in some of them.

[DTD Alum]

Thank you oldu, that was incredibly helpful.

[Mevara]

Originally Posted by IrishLake

I would check with local planning/auditor/building etc offices.

At least in california all buildings will have the plans in the planning office. It differs city to city, but some of them only show them to you in person.

[DTD Alum]

Originally Posted by Mevara

At least in california all buildings will have the plans in the planning office. It differs city to city, but some of them only show them to you in person.

I know in Los Angeles county you must have written permission of the architect and property owner to even view a blueprint in person. Other counties may be more relaxed however.

[Low C Sharp]

If I recall correctly, both Ole Miss AOPI and UGA Gamma Phi Beta are in the process of updating/adding on to their historic homes, and have published floor plans showing the proposed changes in the fundraising brochures, which are/were online.
________
How to roll a joint

[honeychile]

Pitt bought a luxury apartment comples - THE luxury apartment complex! - back in the 1950's, and the sororities (except for Kappa Alpha Theta & Kappa Kappa Gamma, who shared a specially made duplex at the time) were all forced to live in the nicest. That was Amos Hall (conveniently Building "A"), and there were two apartments on each floor. Each side had a kitchen, a living room, and en suite bathrooms. The larger sororities had the full floor (there were four when I was in school) and the smaller had one of the apartments. The Pitt website shows the floor plan prior to the second to the last reconstruction; there have been at least three that I know of.

The floorplan is here. The service elevator (to the right) was still there when I was in school, but only used by the university. There are also subtle differences from floor to flooe - we have the Penthouse Suite (the button was marked PH), and the formal living room has a 22' tall ceiling! Rooms 1, 3, 5, 18, 20, 21, and the living room consisted of one apartment - usually the better of the two, with a fireplace. Rooms 18 & 20 were former maids' rooms - my understanding is that the call bells had to be taken out. The service hallway in front of the maids' rooms was where linens and extra china was stored in the apartment days - in my time, we used that for commuters, to store sleeping bags and suitcases.

On the other side (rooms 6, 8, 12, 13, 15) are now bedrooms, but room 12 was formerly the dining room. In both that room and the Chapter Room on the other side, you can see where the toe bell was, for the lady of the house to call the servants. When there were housemothers, they lived in rooms 13 & 15 - one was her bedrom, the other, her receiving area. The amenities of walk-in closets and such have been kept. Now, there is only one kitchen - but it's a wonderful size! - with a laundry nook off of it.

I have the original floorplan somewhere (I'm between houses right now), and the large hallway on the apartment on the left (apartment A) was called "the library". I'm fairly certain that all of the sororities refer to the A side as the Formal Side, and the other as the Informal Side. We changed rooms often - I had rooms 5, 6, 8, and 18 at one time or another.

And I'm very excited to find somebody else who loves blueprints! If there's a Theta Phi Alpha from Pitt on GC, I'd love to hear about your suite (hint!). If I get time at work, I'll do my best to show the latest changes.

[BrandNewAdvisor]

I'd suggest checking with the school's directly. My undergrad's Special Collections Library had plans/blueprints for all the buildings on campus. If the school has a "University Archivist" that would be a good person to ask; there are materials that aren't placed into the online catalog but are accessible if you have a reason to or ask nicely enough. The longer the person has worked there the better.