PKT25: Touring the House, Part 3: Main Floor Public Rooms
Yesterday I took you on a quick overview of the main floor of the Phi Kappa Theta house, with a slightly deeper dive into the two named bedrooms. Let's talk about the rest of the floor.
- The Chapter Room is arguably the most important room in the entire house. Everyone on the house meal plan met there at 6pm Sundays through Thursday. Everybody in the chapter met there for our weekly meetings on Sunday night. Most of our fraternity ritual events took place in this room, and of course once we took down the folding tables it was the dance floor for our parties.
For all of its importance, the Chapter Room was not particularly flashy. Like the hallways and the vast majority of the other rooms in the house, the Chapter Room had hardwood floors. It also had dark wood paneling. There were four different sets of french doors, leading to the outside porch, the main hallway, the Parlor and the Red Room. The radiator had a dark wood seat built over it leading to more windows looking out over the porch. When I joined the house, there was a single chandelier in the center of the room covered by some Phi Kappa Theta stain glass. It was very dark, particularly in the winter, so somewhere early in my college career Patrick and some other hand folks took it down and put up three different chandeliers. These chandeliers had an important trick, which was that they could be easily taken down from the ceiling for parties. The stain glass version was taken by Mike for repair, and I think is still in his basement in Philadelphia all these years later.
- The only way to enter the kitchen was from the Chapter Room. During parties, we'd block off the kitchen with a table and set up the DJ equipment in there. When I joined the kitchen had cheap white cabinets, with a sink looking out over the alcove with the bike rack. Late in my college career we did a complete tear out remodel of the kitchen. The cheap white cabinets went down into the boiler room, new tile went everywhere on the floors and walls, the ceiling and lights were redone, we put in stainless steel shelving, the Parlor bathroom got turned into an extensive pantry with a hand washing sink, we bought a huge restaurant-style refrigerator and freezer and we generally brought the kitchen into modern times. Our chef was much happier with his working conditions after that remodel. The only thing that really stayed between the two iterations of the ktichen was the stove, which was huge and ancient and built like a tank. It was so well suited to its purpose that the only place I've ever seen a stove even vaguely like it was at the long since deceased Mexican restaurant Que Tal in Coventry, which had the exact same stove.
- The Red Room was the formal living room of the house. By longstanding rule, the only people who were allowed to bring food or drink into the Red Room was alumni of the chapter. This meant that a de facto graduation ceremony involved all the new graduates drinking a beer together in the Red Room. It was also blocked off during parties. As a result, the red carpet (closely matching our official colors) was in pretty good shape. So was the khaki sofa set, which while not nice was in far better shape than the typical sofa in the house. There was also extensive seating on built-ins over the radiators and a beautiful hardwood mantle over the (unused) fireplace. Our very oldest fraternity composites, some dating back to the pre-1959 Phi Kappa days lived in this room, as did some of our trophies. We had assorted fraternity committee meetings here, as well as our associate member education meetings. guests also crashed in their from time to time, as did brothers who were between housing.
- The centerpiece of the Study Room was a giant gorgeous table made from the surface of a bowling alley. Quite a bit of actual studying took place here, especially group efforts. There were also built-ins that stored an assortment of fraternity mementos, including old photo albums and copies of "The Book", an informal journal of house events that any brother could write in. It also made a fine place to hang out and chat. When particularly stressed, you could also put on a helmet, sprint from the Red Room to the Study Room and dive on the table and slide all the way to the other end. Or so I hear.
- The Stereo Closet was pretty much as labeled on the tin. We had a fairly impressive DJ rig, and depending on who was in charge of it and how ambitious they were, Phi Kappa Theta would end up DJing various events around the campus, up to and including big events like Homecoming. We even bought the full lighting rig for parties after realizing that we'd get our money back pretty quickly compared to renting. How it all fit in that closet was a mystery to me, and since I never once DJed a fraternity event, one I never solved.
- There was a small half bath on the edge of the first floor. Dutton actually retiled the floor in there somewhere along the way, or maybe his father did.
- The only area left is the main hallway itself. There was usually a bulletin board along the back of the hallway. Once PKT0 was created, a phone was next to it. Other than that, the hallway was usually empty of furniture and decoration with one exception. The current fraternity composite was always hung on the wall between the french doors to the Red Room and the french doors to the Chapter Room. A composite, for those not aware, is essentially a group photo of the active membership. A photographer for the vendor would schedule a time at the house, and everyone would show up in their time slot and get their photo taken in formal wear. If they missed it, they'd try to attend a make up session at another house. If they missed again, they'd get their name under "Not Pictured." All of these individual photos would be combined into one large framed photo to hang in the hallway, with smaller copies given to each of the actives.
The pattern in our chapter was as follows:
- The Red Room and the Study Room had our very oldest composites in them, and they did not move.
- The newest composite was hung in the main hallway.
- The next newest composite would be placed on the wall of the main stairway, and they would get older as you went up the stairs, down the second floor hallway, up the stairs to the third floor, and along the third floor hallway. When I was an active, the very oldest ones that didn't make the cut for the Red Room or Study Room were resting in the third floor hallway because we hadn't figured out where to put them. Now, 25 years later, most of the five composites that feature me are solidly in the third floor hallway.
Next time, we'll head down to the basement.
ADDENDUM: When wi-fi was installed in the house after I graduated, the wi-fi box was put in the main hallway, which probably made sense from a coverage perspective but was ugly as heck.
- The Chapter Room is arguably the most important room in the entire house. Everyone on the house meal plan met there at 6pm Sundays through Thursday. Everybody in the chapter met there for our weekly meetings on Sunday night. Most of our fraternity ritual events took place in this room, and of course once we took down the folding tables it was the dance floor for our parties.
For all of its importance, the Chapter Room was not particularly flashy. Like the hallways and the vast majority of the other rooms in the house, the Chapter Room had hardwood floors. It also had dark wood paneling. There were four different sets of french doors, leading to the outside porch, the main hallway, the Parlor and the Red Room. The radiator had a dark wood seat built over it leading to more windows looking out over the porch. When I joined the house, there was a single chandelier in the center of the room covered by some Phi Kappa Theta stain glass. It was very dark, particularly in the winter, so somewhere early in my college career Patrick and some other hand folks took it down and put up three different chandeliers. These chandeliers had an important trick, which was that they could be easily taken down from the ceiling for parties. The stain glass version was taken by Mike for repair, and I think is still in his basement in Philadelphia all these years later.
- The only way to enter the kitchen was from the Chapter Room. During parties, we'd block off the kitchen with a table and set up the DJ equipment in there. When I joined the kitchen had cheap white cabinets, with a sink looking out over the alcove with the bike rack. Late in my college career we did a complete tear out remodel of the kitchen. The cheap white cabinets went down into the boiler room, new tile went everywhere on the floors and walls, the ceiling and lights were redone, we put in stainless steel shelving, the Parlor bathroom got turned into an extensive pantry with a hand washing sink, we bought a huge restaurant-style refrigerator and freezer and we generally brought the kitchen into modern times. Our chef was much happier with his working conditions after that remodel. The only thing that really stayed between the two iterations of the ktichen was the stove, which was huge and ancient and built like a tank. It was so well suited to its purpose that the only place I've ever seen a stove even vaguely like it was at the long since deceased Mexican restaurant Que Tal in Coventry, which had the exact same stove.
- The Red Room was the formal living room of the house. By longstanding rule, the only people who were allowed to bring food or drink into the Red Room was alumni of the chapter. This meant that a de facto graduation ceremony involved all the new graduates drinking a beer together in the Red Room. It was also blocked off during parties. As a result, the red carpet (closely matching our official colors) was in pretty good shape. So was the khaki sofa set, which while not nice was in far better shape than the typical sofa in the house. There was also extensive seating on built-ins over the radiators and a beautiful hardwood mantle over the (unused) fireplace. Our very oldest fraternity composites, some dating back to the pre-1959 Phi Kappa days lived in this room, as did some of our trophies. We had assorted fraternity committee meetings here, as well as our associate member education meetings. guests also crashed in their from time to time, as did brothers who were between housing.
- The centerpiece of the Study Room was a giant gorgeous table made from the surface of a bowling alley. Quite a bit of actual studying took place here, especially group efforts. There were also built-ins that stored an assortment of fraternity mementos, including old photo albums and copies of "The Book", an informal journal of house events that any brother could write in. It also made a fine place to hang out and chat. When particularly stressed, you could also put on a helmet, sprint from the Red Room to the Study Room and dive on the table and slide all the way to the other end. Or so I hear.
- The Stereo Closet was pretty much as labeled on the tin. We had a fairly impressive DJ rig, and depending on who was in charge of it and how ambitious they were, Phi Kappa Theta would end up DJing various events around the campus, up to and including big events like Homecoming. We even bought the full lighting rig for parties after realizing that we'd get our money back pretty quickly compared to renting. How it all fit in that closet was a mystery to me, and since I never once DJed a fraternity event, one I never solved.
- There was a small half bath on the edge of the first floor. Dutton actually retiled the floor in there somewhere along the way, or maybe his father did.
- The only area left is the main hallway itself. There was usually a bulletin board along the back of the hallway. Once PKT0 was created, a phone was next to it. Other than that, the hallway was usually empty of furniture and decoration with one exception. The current fraternity composite was always hung on the wall between the french doors to the Red Room and the french doors to the Chapter Room. A composite, for those not aware, is essentially a group photo of the active membership. A photographer for the vendor would schedule a time at the house, and everyone would show up in their time slot and get their photo taken in formal wear. If they missed it, they'd try to attend a make up session at another house. If they missed again, they'd get their name under "Not Pictured." All of these individual photos would be combined into one large framed photo to hang in the hallway, with smaller copies given to each of the actives.
The pattern in our chapter was as follows:
- The Red Room and the Study Room had our very oldest composites in them, and they did not move.
- The newest composite was hung in the main hallway.
- The next newest composite would be placed on the wall of the main stairway, and they would get older as you went up the stairs, down the second floor hallway, up the stairs to the third floor, and along the third floor hallway. When I was an active, the very oldest ones that didn't make the cut for the Red Room or Study Room were resting in the third floor hallway because we hadn't figured out where to put them. Now, 25 years later, most of the five composites that feature me are solidly in the third floor hallway.
Next time, we'll head down to the basement.
ADDENDUM: When wi-fi was installed in the house after I graduated, the wi-fi box was put in the main hallway, which probably made sense from a coverage perspective but was ugly as heck.