A Tale of Two Frat Houses

Greek House Gets a Facelift

Two Fraternity houses at Michigan State are seeing a significant changes. The two houses, formerly belonging to Delta Upsilon and Beta Theta Pi are now vacant, as the fraternities have left have left MSU for a variety of reasons.

The Delta Upsilon house, pictured left, has been sold to property developers Community Resource Management Co. for $575,000 in January. The house has 14 bedrooms, 2 study lounges, formal room, game room, kitchen, basement, and 4 bathrooms. The new owners have renovated the building, and plan on leasing it out to the MSU chapter of Lambda Phi Epsilon,who may move in as soon as May 2007.

The house that the Beta Theta Phi brothers used to call home also is in transition. While the fraternity is no longer recognized by their nationals, the house was still occupied until recently. The residents were made to vacate the building when it was condemned for health and safety reasons. When the building inspector visited the site it was found to have "garbage throughout the home, backed-up plumbing and sledgehammer marks battered into the walls."

The Beta house, shown at left, boasts a unique structure which includes an indoor basketball court, and several decks that lead directly to the banks of the Red Cedar river. James Rasor, president of Beta Tau Alumni Corp., which owns the home said the alumni have "stabilized the situation" and "If we sell it, we're obviously not going to make the repairs — the new owner will do that."