Come June 2007, Phi Kappa Psi, already the first house to be
erected on Gayley Avenue in 1930, may also become the first
fraternity to initiate a complete rebuilding.
The UCLA chapter of Phi Kappa Psi is in the early stages of
planning to replace its current fraternity house, located at 613
Gayley Ave., with an entirely original design. The preliminary
design for the 45-foot new house boasts an on-site, subterranean
parking structure, 23 bedrooms, up-to-date facilities and
amenities, a common area, kitchen, dining room, expanded living
space, and a chapter room.
The current Phi Kappa Psi house is home to rats, leaking
problems and outdated facilities, including a lack of central
heating, said Dan Morberg, president of the fraternity’s UCLA
chapter. Morberg hopes that with the larger and more inviting
living space more brothers will be able to live in the house,
encouraging greater growth and bonding within the fraternity.
The UCLA chapter is not the first of the Phi Kappa Psi
fraternities to rebuild its house. According to Shawn Collinsworth,
executive director of the Phi Kappa Psi National Fraternity, the
fraternity is trying to improve its living conditions across the
country.
“We’re trying to work with all the chapters to meet
the competitive housing on college campuses,” said
Collinsworth. “All these new residential halls on college
campuses, they’re upgrading them, making them more user
friendly, putting in labs, so we’re trying to do the same
thing.”
The University of Texas chapter is also in the process of
campaigning to build a new house, complete with a new parking
structure.
Currently, the Westwood Design Review Board is supportive of the
plan but expressed the wish that the new house design have a more
Mediterranean architectural theme to keep with the original design
of the campus’ four founding buildings.
At the preliminary design hearing on Jan. 18 between Phi Kappa
Psi and the Design Review Board, George Seitz, the architect in
charge of designing the new fraternity house, was prompted to
re-create the building’s design with more of an architectural
statement.
This plan is something that the Phi Kappa Psi alumni have wanted
to put into action for a long time, Morberg said.
“The fraternity has been talking about (rebuilding) for 25
years,” said Robert Rayburn, a member of the Phi Kappa Psi
Alumni Corporation Board.
A project of this size can cost up to five million dollars,
resulting in years of planning, fundraising and contributing, said
Rayburn. He added that most of the delay in the planning has
resulted from a lack of funds and time constraints.
Phi Kappa Psi plans to begin tearing down the house when it
receives all the final approvals and raises enough money.
Rayburn estimates that the reconstruction will begin in June of
2007 and take roughly one school year to complete, during which
time the fraternity brothers will either occupy a vacant fraternity
house or nearby apartments.
It is doubtful whether the other fraternity houses on Gayley
Avenue will follow the lead of Phi Kappa Psi and replace their own
homes. According to Morberg, many of them have little need to
renovate at the moment, as their houses have better facilities than
Phi Kappa Psi’s and are much younger.
Members of the community have commented that the reconstruction
of Phi Kappa Psi’s original house would be a monumental
undertaking, as it would represent the first house on fraternity
row to be taken down and recreated and would mark the destruction
of the first fraternity house to ever be built on Gayley
Avenue.
However, the payoff would be enormous, according to Morberg,
since the chapter house is the center of the brotherhood. And to
have it expanded and improved is to have a better place where
brothers can come together.