PKT25: Touring the House, Part 1: Outside
I know that last time I said I'd take you inside, but we're going to have wait a bit for that because I've decided the Phi Kappa Theta house is big enough both physically and in the collective memory of our membership to merit a multi-part tour. We're going to start this tour outside today, and then work our way through the basement, first, second and third floors in subsequent posts. As always, I'm describing the house as it was when I was there from 1996-2001, not as it is today!
So, if you stood on the sidewalk next to Magnolia Drive and looked straight at our house, you'd see a large brick house with a driveway going up the right side of the house. The main sidewalk goes up several stairs to a covered front porch; the pillars for that front porch are quite wide and have our letters painted on them. There were usually sofas or some sort of outdoor seating on this porch, and in virtually any good weather a couple of brothers would be hanging out here. The official letters for our house were on the wall above the roof of this patio. They were VERY securely fastened to the brickwork, as a couple of attempted thieves found to their frustration over the years. To the right of the driveway was the last magnolia tree on Magnolia Drive. A few years into my tenure we planted a second one on the other side of the driveway, but I'm reliably told that both have since passed away.
The driveway was actually two side-by-side driveways, separated closer to the road by a hedge. During my time in college the house on the right that owned the second driveway was empty and was used for storage by the University Circle group. It was also somewhat decrepit and occasionally open to the elements, as the family of raccoons living there one year demonstrated most visibly. The few times I was in that house, it was clear that some of the upstairs rooms were not structurally stable, and the back yard of that house was filled with a giant pile of tree trimmings. The upshot was that we were able to use that driveway as much as we wanted, to the point that we actually put assigned parking spaces there even though it wasn't our property. At some point after I graduated, that neighboring house was remodeled and used for some organization, and that option went away.
If you continued up the driveway, you'd pass the side entrance and reach our back parking lot. The paved area wrapped around to the left, with a total of two garage spots in the carriage house and six more along the edge of the lot alongside our sand volleyball court. We charged an absurdly low amount of money for a semester of parking - it was something like $50 a semester when a parking permit for a north side campus lot was multiple hundreds of dollars. Parking was drawn by seniority. I myself only had a car the first semester of my first senior year and my second senior year, by which point I had more than enough seniority to get a decent parking spot. Throw in the second driveway and we had parking for 12 cars, easily, even allowing for clearance by the dumpster shed to the right of the garage. There was also a back door here that entered a stairwell along the back of the house as well as an alcove with a bike rack that wasn't quite covered but was at least sheltered.
Speaking of the carriage house, there was a staircase along the left side of the garage that led to an apartment above the garage spots that probably had been servants quarters back in the day when the house was built by and lived in by rich people. When I arrived in 1996 it was in a state of disrepair, which didn't keep us from renting it out to (I think) May and Gloria for the 97-98 school year. We then remodeled it heavily when our fraternity brother Neal and his future wife Rachel had a baby in late 98, and the three of them lived there through graduation in 2001. After that Dolan remodeled it again and lived in there for a few years until he finally graduated, and possibly beyond. Sometimes this apartment was referred to as "The Treehouse."
To the left of the garage was a decorative brick wall that had a fountain built into it. We even fixed the fountain at one point and got it running during warmer weather. High up on the garage wall we had mounted a spotlight to illuminate the sand volleyball court. The court itself had been built somewhere in the 1994-1996 range. After the last post my brothers argued about when exactly it was, and the answer seemed to be "probably 1995, but maybe 1994 and maybe 1996." As we've discussed on this journal repeatedly, memory is hard! In any event, it was a very nice sand volleyball court, and particularly in the summer there was at least one and usually more games nearly every evening.
From the back parking lot it was two quick steps up to a wooden porch which looked out over the volleyball court. Some artistic brothers painted the fraternity seal on it after I graduated. The wooden had a lot of benches on it, and met up with tho original stone porch of the house, which ran all the way to the front of the house. Early in our college career Rowan's father, a welder by trade, built us a very sturdy grill that lived out here. I believe it disappeared some time after we graduated, but it was a heck of a solid grill and saw some solid usage during the warmer months.
Speaking of things that disappeared, we also had a very long ladder capable of reaching the roof of this three story house which was kept padlocked the pilings of the wooden porch. At some point after I graduated, someone forgot to chain it up, and it was stolen. Our house, and the campus in general, were not in what most middle class white people would consider to be a particularly safe neighborhood. At least twice while I was in college people were mugged out front of our house (once Elise who was pussygalore66 and once Dawn who was dmw7). Over one Christmas break someone broke down the door and then broke down a bunch of locked interior doors to steal stuff from rooms - I lost a clock radio. A few years before I arrived someone apparently went through the house and robbed people at gun point; a shotgun, if I remember the story correctly. I personally never felt unsafe there, but I was also young, stupid and immortal.
The house on the left (aka across the wooden fence from the volleyball court and side porch) was a residence for some sort of church group, or so I recall. Once in a while they'd come next door to play volleyball with us, but that was pretty much the extent of our interactions. I have no idea who lived across the street from us. I feel like some of those houses were still private residences, but I really can't say. Certainly we never had much reason to deal with them.
We had a chain link fence along the back of our property. If you went through the gate in that fence and off to the left, you could take a shortcut through the Western Reserve Historical Society's parking log which would get you to class slightly faster than going out the front door and heading along the driveway. At some point after I graduated they built some condos in that area which blocked off the shortcut.
The house itself was mostly brick. Some of the upper floors had a material that looked sort of like a "plaster and lathe" finish; I don't know the technical term but I'm sure one of my brothers does and can tell me. Some of that was original to the house, and in others it had been used for two rooms that were obviously later additions. We'd put on a new roof in 1994 (that date everyone agreed on!). There were a few large trees in the front and the back of the house, and at one point put some effort into making the landscaping in the front look a bit nicer.
The house didn't have air conditioning beyond window units, so in any warmer weather windows were always open and people hung out on one of the porches. Since we didn't have smart phones back then or even wi-fi (even laptops were comparatively unusual), this usually meant talking and joking, and maybe even the occasional studying.
Next time, we'll go inside, I promise.
So, if you stood on the sidewalk next to Magnolia Drive and looked straight at our house, you'd see a large brick house with a driveway going up the right side of the house. The main sidewalk goes up several stairs to a covered front porch; the pillars for that front porch are quite wide and have our letters painted on them. There were usually sofas or some sort of outdoor seating on this porch, and in virtually any good weather a couple of brothers would be hanging out here. The official letters for our house were on the wall above the roof of this patio. They were VERY securely fastened to the brickwork, as a couple of attempted thieves found to their frustration over the years. To the right of the driveway was the last magnolia tree on Magnolia Drive. A few years into my tenure we planted a second one on the other side of the driveway, but I'm reliably told that both have since passed away.
The driveway was actually two side-by-side driveways, separated closer to the road by a hedge. During my time in college the house on the right that owned the second driveway was empty and was used for storage by the University Circle group. It was also somewhat decrepit and occasionally open to the elements, as the family of raccoons living there one year demonstrated most visibly. The few times I was in that house, it was clear that some of the upstairs rooms were not structurally stable, and the back yard of that house was filled with a giant pile of tree trimmings. The upshot was that we were able to use that driveway as much as we wanted, to the point that we actually put assigned parking spaces there even though it wasn't our property. At some point after I graduated, that neighboring house was remodeled and used for some organization, and that option went away.
If you continued up the driveway, you'd pass the side entrance and reach our back parking lot. The paved area wrapped around to the left, with a total of two garage spots in the carriage house and six more along the edge of the lot alongside our sand volleyball court. We charged an absurdly low amount of money for a semester of parking - it was something like $50 a semester when a parking permit for a north side campus lot was multiple hundreds of dollars. Parking was drawn by seniority. I myself only had a car the first semester of my first senior year and my second senior year, by which point I had more than enough seniority to get a decent parking spot. Throw in the second driveway and we had parking for 12 cars, easily, even allowing for clearance by the dumpster shed to the right of the garage. There was also a back door here that entered a stairwell along the back of the house as well as an alcove with a bike rack that wasn't quite covered but was at least sheltered.
Speaking of the carriage house, there was a staircase along the left side of the garage that led to an apartment above the garage spots that probably had been servants quarters back in the day when the house was built by and lived in by rich people. When I arrived in 1996 it was in a state of disrepair, which didn't keep us from renting it out to (I think) May and Gloria for the 97-98 school year. We then remodeled it heavily when our fraternity brother Neal and his future wife Rachel had a baby in late 98, and the three of them lived there through graduation in 2001. After that Dolan remodeled it again and lived in there for a few years until he finally graduated, and possibly beyond. Sometimes this apartment was referred to as "The Treehouse."
To the left of the garage was a decorative brick wall that had a fountain built into it. We even fixed the fountain at one point and got it running during warmer weather. High up on the garage wall we had mounted a spotlight to illuminate the sand volleyball court. The court itself had been built somewhere in the 1994-1996 range. After the last post my brothers argued about when exactly it was, and the answer seemed to be "probably 1995, but maybe 1994 and maybe 1996." As we've discussed on this journal repeatedly, memory is hard! In any event, it was a very nice sand volleyball court, and particularly in the summer there was at least one and usually more games nearly every evening.
From the back parking lot it was two quick steps up to a wooden porch which looked out over the volleyball court. Some artistic brothers painted the fraternity seal on it after I graduated. The wooden had a lot of benches on it, and met up with tho original stone porch of the house, which ran all the way to the front of the house. Early in our college career Rowan's father, a welder by trade, built us a very sturdy grill that lived out here. I believe it disappeared some time after we graduated, but it was a heck of a solid grill and saw some solid usage during the warmer months.
Speaking of things that disappeared, we also had a very long ladder capable of reaching the roof of this three story house which was kept padlocked the pilings of the wooden porch. At some point after I graduated, someone forgot to chain it up, and it was stolen. Our house, and the campus in general, were not in what most middle class white people would consider to be a particularly safe neighborhood. At least twice while I was in college people were mugged out front of our house (once Elise who was pussygalore66 and once Dawn who was dmw7). Over one Christmas break someone broke down the door and then broke down a bunch of locked interior doors to steal stuff from rooms - I lost a clock radio. A few years before I arrived someone apparently went through the house and robbed people at gun point; a shotgun, if I remember the story correctly. I personally never felt unsafe there, but I was also young, stupid and immortal.
The house on the left (aka across the wooden fence from the volleyball court and side porch) was a residence for some sort of church group, or so I recall. Once in a while they'd come next door to play volleyball with us, but that was pretty much the extent of our interactions. I have no idea who lived across the street from us. I feel like some of those houses were still private residences, but I really can't say. Certainly we never had much reason to deal with them.
We had a chain link fence along the back of our property. If you went through the gate in that fence and off to the left, you could take a shortcut through the Western Reserve Historical Society's parking log which would get you to class slightly faster than going out the front door and heading along the driveway. At some point after I graduated they built some condos in that area which blocked off the shortcut.
The house itself was mostly brick. Some of the upper floors had a material that looked sort of like a "plaster and lathe" finish; I don't know the technical term but I'm sure one of my brothers does and can tell me. Some of that was original to the house, and in others it had been used for two rooms that were obviously later additions. We'd put on a new roof in 1994 (that date everyone agreed on!). There were a few large trees in the front and the back of the house, and at one point put some effort into making the landscaping in the front look a bit nicer.
The house didn't have air conditioning beyond window units, so in any warmer weather windows were always open and people hung out on one of the porches. Since we didn't have smart phones back then or even wi-fi (even laptops were comparatively unusual), this usually meant talking and joking, and maybe even the occasional studying.
Next time, we'll go inside, I promise.