Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing

The new houses are apartment buildings, literally! National organizations will make these new houses convertible to apartment buildings so if the chapter fails, they can rent out the rooms and make money. This makes for nice living arrangements, but you don't feel like you are living in a fraternity house.

With the older houses it feels like you are living in a mansion. They tend to be more sturdily built with rooms that are finished with something besides drywall (Wood paneling, exposed brick etc.). Older houses also generally have awesome chapter rooms some of which can be hidden or secret. Not all old houses on campus are nice but some have aged very well.

-Sigma Nu was built in 1932 after moving from the current Kappa Sigma house. The university wanted to get all of the fraternities on Pennsylvania and all of the sororities on Lincoln. The only two that could afford it during the depression, however, were Sigma Nu and ATO.

-Kappa Delta Rho has been on second street since 1928 and is lucky to still be around because of the Six Pack.

-Delta Chi got on campus in the 20's and built their house soon after arriving.

-Psi Upsilon was build in 1924 and was designed by famous architect Benjamin Marshall.

The first 10 Fraternities Chartered at Illinois were: (1) Delta Tau Delta (2) Sigma Chi (3) Kappa Sigma (4) Phi Kappa Sigma (5) Phi Delta Theta (6) Alpha Tau Omega (7) Phi Gamma Delta (8) Sigma Alpha Epsilon (9) Beta Theta Pi and (10) Sigma Nu.

Alpha Tau Omega and Sigma Nu were the first fraternities to build houses to modern (steel frame and reinforced concrete) construction. Their houses were Georgian in style to match the buildings on the South Campus which was under construction at the time (1930-33). The President of the University of Illinois, Harry Woodburn Chase was a Sigma Nu and Thomas Arkle Clark, Dean of Men, was an Alpha Tau Omega (Clark Hall is named for him). The plan was a new fraternity row on Pennsylvania Avenue to intersect with Sorority Row on Lincoln. Lincoln Avenue has several historic sororities that were all built in the late 20's