The Farmhouse, Part 1

Fraternity life, as several generations of Washington & Jefferson College students knew it, came to an end in the fall of 1968. That’s when 10 of the 11 fraternities were compelled to give up their off-campus houses and move into the 10 identical buildings constructed by the college in the area between Beau and Wheeling streets. Phi Gamma Delta, the only exception, was already housed in a building on campus.
More than half of W&J’s students were members of fraternities at the time, and many of them had lived in and taken their meals in old Victorian houses scattered around town. By design, the fraternities lost much of their independence with the move.

The college had good reasons to gather the fraternities onto campus. Neighbors of the frat houses complained about loud music, juvenile behavior and raucous parties, and the houses, outside the jurisdiction of the college, were poorly maintained and fire traps.

Some would say the new structures resembled artillery bunkers. Each was equipped with a kitchen, party and living rooms, and an apartment for a house mother. The houses were grouped so tightly that it was possible to throw, say, a water balloon, from the window of a room in one house through the window of a room in a neighboring house.
The new facilities were clean, functional and convenient, but fraternity members accustomed to hiring their own cooks and regulating their own premises bristled at the new and sterile arrangement. They felt as if the personality and identity of their brotherhood had been stolen, and that they were now under the constant watch of campus security.

The disgruntled seniors in one of the fraternities concocted a remedy for the situation: a home away from home. They brought before their membership a proposal to rent a farmhouse about 15 miles from Washington. The house could be used by the brothers to escape the pressures of campus life and as a refuge for study. It was also argued that such a remote retreat, away from the scrutiny of the dean, would be ideal for conducting initiation activities. It would also be a great place to party and to shack up with girlfriends.

And so, that December, an old farm high on a hill, long vacant and just beginning to give in to the beatings of the elements, received new life.