Sigma Chi Settles Into New Home

The second of three floors in Sigma Chi’s new home at 1124 Mass. Ave. is all pink paint and flower wallpaper—not what one would expect to find in a fraternity house.

The brothers have a lot of work to do.

This semester, about 10 members of the Kappa Eta chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity will live at the house, the only social club residence on campus. Since exam period, members of the club—whether or not they’ll be living there—have been renovating the late 19th-century Victorian they bought last semester for just under $1 million.

“It’s definitely a work in progress, but by the end of the month, this will be phenomenal,” said Matthew B. Salzberg ’05, president of Sigma Chi.

Salzberg said Sigma Chi alums and current members are happy to have a place to call home, which they feel will secure the fraternity’s presence at Harvard.

While the house is a bit smaller than the property formerly owned by Sigma Chi, Salzberg said that the new house is much more livable, and that more members expressed interest in living in the property than could be accommodated.

“Our rent is intentionally comparable to Harvard rent, with nicer rooms and better accommodations,” he said. “This is a more mainstream alternative to campus housing.”

Tearing Down the Walls

The house boasts bedrooms for 10, two kitchens, several bathrooms, a basement, a parlor and a few rooms with purposes that have not yet been determined.

The ground floor parlor is already set up with two leather couches opposite a functional fireplace—a likely source of envy for students who live in dorm rooms featuring fireplaces that cannot be used without violating College rules. Garlic bread lies strewn across the countertops (they regularly use the kitchens) alongside other remnants of a pasta dinner: streaks on tomato sauce bowls, strands of cold spaghetti.

The Sigma Chi brothers are looking forward to more long-term projects.

After they have settled in, they will renovate the basement to create more space for parties, according to Salzberg.

He said they will be “digging down the floors” to create more head room, and they have already knocked down brick walls that were “breaking up the space.”

Sigma Chi now enjoys old moldings, fireplaces, wood bannisters, ceiling medallions and old light fixtures. While they have yet to paint over the pink rooms and rip down the flowered wall paper, the house is beginning to assume a fraternity ambience.

Salzberg said Sigma Chi was considering having the upcoming pledge class work on a project in the house, such as building a bar.

“We do not haze our pledges, but it would be nice to have the spring’s pledge class contribute something unique to the house to leave their mark,” he said.

Open Door Policy

This semester’s pledge class will join the fraternity two years after it lost its old house. With its purchase, Sigma Chi is now the only campus fraternity with its own building, and the only social club that has members living in its residence.

And unlike final clubs, which only let certain people into their houses and restrict certain rooms to members only, Salzberg said the Sigma Chi house will not have any exclusive parlors or rooms.

“Sigma Chi is about friendship and having a good time, about building relationships and not on exclusivity,” he said.

Salzberg said that Sigma Chi is even looking for people who are not members of the fraternity to live in the house over the summer, provided there is space available.

Though the rent is low, current members helped pay for the house to supplement alums’ donations and money from a settlement Sigma Chi received when it left its former home two years ago.

From 1996 to 2002, Sigma Chi shared property at 43-45 Mt. Auburn Street with another social club, Pi Eta Speakers Associates.

In 2001, Pi Eta decided to sell the house, and did so a year later after agreeing to pay Sigma Chi an undisclosed amount for their share of the house.

This payment helped significantly to defray the $940,000-cost on Sigma Chi’s new property. The fraternity has only a decade of alums to draw on for donations.

“Our young alumni base made it a particular challenge to raise enough money, but our success is a testament to how much everyone in the organization cares about it,” Salzberg said. “This is a huge feat for a young organization.”

—Staff writer Nicole B. Urken can be reached at urken@fas.harvard.edu.