Why are fraternities moving out of Peanut Row?

By Shaunacy Ferro

7:28 p.m. May 22 2012

Part of the Peanut Row complex of buildings as seen from Lincoln Street. Photos by the author / North by Northwestern

On Feb. 3, 2012, an announcement that AEPi would be relocating come September landed in most Northwestern students’ inboxes. The email from Patricia Telles-Irvin, the vice president for student affairs, added that “due to the deteriorating condition of the structures at 572 and 576 Lincoln Street, Theta Chi, and Zeta Beta Tau are in discussions with Northwestern about relocating their residences.”

Eventually, the complex of fraternity houses that make up the northernmost stretch of campus on Lincoln Street, collectively known as Peanut Row, will be torn down entirely. This year it housed ZBT, Theta Chi and AEPi. The former Pike house between AEPi and Theta Chi is abandoned.

“Part of that area has been condemned, it’s boarded up and it is not very aesthetically pleasing,” Telles-Irvin said. “After talking to a few people at the university, it just seemed the right thing to do to get the students a better place to live.”

But there are plenty of older buildings on campus that are still being used. So why is Peanut Row in such bad shape?

The former Pike house, now abandoned, is one of the buildings in Peanut Row.

The rumor is that it was built as military barracks during World War II and wasn't meant to last permanently. It’s a pervasive enough trivia tidbit that university administrators had also heard it, but no one could confirm its origins or its truth. Like much of the general history of fraternities on campus, it had gotten lost in the annals of time.

To try to trace the evolution of the frat quad is a difficult task. The men's dorm and fraternity housing system started in early 1910s. Since then, chapters have moved in and out, left campus and come back, traded houses. There is no coherent record.

The rumor has a grain of truth to it, but it misses the mark. The houses that make up Peanut Row did serve as military barracks during World War II, when Northwestern hosted a Navy training program and much of the on-campus housing in the men’s quad, including fraternities, were given over to men in the service. "For men, housing units have largely ceased to exist," the 1944 President's Report noted. During that time, fraternity meetings and gatherings took place in Scott Hall.

But the houses were built years earlier, as the country was emerging from the Great Depression. Northwestern was faced with an increasing demand for student housing and a lack of resources to build new facilities. Administrators were eager to have fraternities move onto campus and alleviate part of the issue, but most fraternities weren’t in a position to do so. Moving onto campus required building a house. Though Northwestern owns the land fraternity houses stand on, the brick and mortar is for the most part owned by the organization itself.

The solution? Build houses cheaply.

The frats were restricted to building two story houses, which saved on construction costs and allowed more frats to move on campus.

In the President’s Report from 1936-1937, the university celebrated the breakthrough:

A number of off-campus fraternities had little prospect of coming on to the campus because increased construction costs had made building in the established style too heavy a burden. As a result, Mr. Wells [the newly elected vice president and business manager] suggested a group of smaller semi-detached houses, lower, and of a less expensive construction. Plans were worked out for the group, using a shade of brick used in the older fraternity houses, assuring harmony of appearance, but simplifying the building lines of the group. Costs were reduced to such an extent that five off-campus fraternities entered into contract for the buildings, and work was commenced in the winter.

Three fraternities — Acacia (whose chapter closed in 1990), Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) and Theta Xi (whose chapter closed in 1988) — made down payments on their houses immediately, but Phi Mu Delta and Phi Epsilon Pi were offered year-long rentals of the last two houses on a test basis, so that in case the fraternities couldn't get their finances together by the next year, the facilities could be turned into dorms.

At the time that Peanut Row was built, Theta Chi and AEPi weren't even on campus. ZBT opened its chapter in 1920 (though it closed for a brief period in the '70s), but Theta Chi was founded in 1950 and AEPi didn't recieve its charter until 2000.

How does a fraternity move, anyway?

The university has a lease with the fraternity’s housing corporation, which is usually made up of a few alumni who may or may not live in the area. They communicate between the university, the fraternity chapter and the national leadership. Much like a normal tenant renting a house, the housing corporation is responsible for maintaining the house, making repairs and dealing with yearly inspections from the city. If the fraternity has an “opt in” lease with the university, the university takes some responsibility for repairs and maintenance, but the majority of fraternities have “opt out” leases, making them fully responsible for their facilities.

In the case of AEPi, members of the national housing services met with Telles-Irvin in the first weeks of winter quarter to restructure their 10-year lease. The fraternity’s president at the time, Adam Matsil, toured potential houses with Dominic Greene, the director of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, and members of the chapter's housing corps. “Then after that it was just paperwork,” Matsil said. They'll hop across the frat quad to 584 Lincoln St. on Sept. 10.