Fraternity moves back to historic house 4 years after fire

For four years, ever since their historic house burned down in May 2008, members of the Delta Upsilon chapter at Michigan have been telling freshman rushing their fraternity that they would be the first to live a brand new remodeled house at 1331 Hill St. Today, they finally are able to make good on that promise, at least to the current sophomores.

“It’s been a long, long time coming,” chapter president Kevin Lass said. Lass pledged the fraternity as a freshman in the fall of 2009, a year after the house was torn down, and he has been looking forward to this day ever since.

“It’s taken a lot of patience from the undergraduate end. It’s been really frustrating, but now we’re finally moving in.”

There is one last delay that caused some brothers to spend last night at a Days Inn. The last hurdle left to clear is connecting the fire alarm system with the built-in sprinklers, which should happen in the next day or two.

The architect for the renovation, Jeffery Scott, said most of the delays throughout the process happened because the insurance carrier, RSUI, did not want to pay for the house to be renovated as a historical building. The full cost of re-building much of the house reached $5.9 million.

“Every time we would finish a stage in the process we would have to stop,” he said.

“With the insurance not having been settled, it was difficult for us to proceed to the next step in the renovation.”

A spokesman for RSUI said that the company does not comment on claims that have not been settled.

The insurance details have not been worked out yet, but that hasn’t dampened the excitement of the undergraduates who will be moving in within the next two days.

“People are just mesmerized by the house,” chapter public relations officer Jack Barch said.

“The attention to detail everywhere is amazing. If it’s going to take four years, they made sure that everything came out perfect.”

After touring the house, Laura Blake Jones, Dean of Students at the University of Michigan,, referred to it as a "gem."

“It’s great for the students to have a place to come together to live the values of their chapter. It can be a really important part of a college student’s experience.”

The house was built by well-known Detroit architect Albert Kahn in 1903 and is listed on state and national registries of historic places. John Markiewicz, who graduated from the University of Michigan in 1965, said walking into the new house was like taking a step back in time.

“You go from the front porch, and you walk in, and it’s like you're walking back into 1903,” he said.

The historic nature of the house is indeed felt as soon as you walk in the front door. A fireplace with intricate wooden relief sculptures surrounding it commands attention as the centerpiece of the chapter room just to the left of the entrance. That room, Markiewicz’s favorite, will not be used for partying.

“That room is definitely going to be closed off a lot of the time,” Lass said.

“It’s for chapter business, meetings, and brothers to enjoy themselves, but it won’t be a really wild room.”

There will be parties held at the house, and the fraternity plans to use it to continue to expand. The chapter doubled in size in the last year, initiating 26 of the 50 current members.

“This house was one of the main reasons I joined,” incoming house manager Chris Heyer said.

“And we are expecting our pledge classes to continue to grow over the next couple of semesters when they see what a great new building we have.”

It was a bittersweet celebration for Mischa Veenhuysen. He was a freshman in 2007 and was excited to live in the house as a sophomore in the fall of 2008.

“They’re just now opening the house and I’m leaving for grad school in China in two days, it’s pretty ironic,” he said.

“We thought it was going to be done every year… I guess they finally got it now.”

Markiewicz, who has served as alumni president since 1992, said he wants to remind the brothers that while the house is a major accomplishment, there’s more to being in a fraternity.

“I told the men who are currently in the chapter, a fraternity is not a house, it’s a group of men interacting and growing over their four years here,” he said.

“They’ve proven that with how well they’ve done the last four years even without a house. They can’t just take this building for granted now that they have it, this is something special that needs to be maintained.”

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Ben Freed covers business for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at 734-623-2528 or email him at benfreed@annarbor.com. Follow him on twitter @BFreedinA2