Design History – The Work of Benjamin Marshall
The chapter was originally designed by Benjamin H. Marshall, noted Chicago architect whose associate Frank T. Kegley ’08 had long been advisor and friend of the chapter. Marshall also drew plans for Chicago landmarks including the Drake Hotel, the former Edgewater Beach Hotel and apartments along East Lake Shore Drive, and the Iroquois Theater. He was on the forefront in designing for the city's elite, and was known as the father of the elegant residential apartment in Chicago. Marshall designed more than 60 mansions and country houses in the Chicago area before he died in 1944, including the Cuneo estate in Vernon Hills, now a museum, and the Peabody mansion in Oak Brook.
THE DIAMOND OF PSI UPSILON in November 1924 described the Omicron's home in this way:
Located on the southwest corner of Fourth Street and Armory Avenue, it is placed on the lot with its quarter circle facade facing the corner so that the front, east and north walls combine to make the principal elevation, and the long front so produced combines pleasingly with the great elm on the corner as seen from the principal approach.
As you approach the house, you see a broad expanse of lawn with the building set well back from the street and planted so as to force entrance well back from the corner on either street. The mass and outline of the building develop a natural, rather than contrived picturesqueness. The style shows the same spirit which animated the Sixteenth Century Englishman, when he built in native style and period. Precisely the same careful attention to line and proportion, and right adaptation of fea-tures to their purposes are apparent throughout the building.
The front is dominated by two large chimneys and centered between them on the axis of the lot and circle is the main entrance of stone. This feature rises to a height above the second story window sills, where it is topped by the Ancient Owl, and because it is symbolic, it becomes the main feature of the building. The materials used for the walls are a rough textured brick which will be treated with a special whitewash. The window lintels are of stone, as are also the porch piers of the living porch on the south.
Entering the house through the vestibule, you enter a circular gallery from which easy oak stairs rise to the second floor. The gallery is treated with heavy wooden beams and openings cased with heavy timbers, framed and nail-studded in the English manner. Flanking the main entrance doors two recesses are formed and the space thus obtained is occupied by upholstered seats.
Opening naturally from each end of the gallery are the living room on the east and the dining room on the north. These rooms are alike in size and similar in treatment, with rough plastered walls, brick fireplaces, brick and masonry window openings. The great recessed fireplace in the living room occupies more than half of the north wall of this room. Recesses formed in walls provide space for chests and the display of various trophies. These rooms with the gallery form practically one room for purposes of entertaining. To the south of the living room are a glazed living porch and a library.
On the south wall of the gallery and east of the main stair a door opens into a large coat room, in which are located telephone booths, coat racks, a lavatory and a drinking fountain: from the coat room a stair leads to a segregated portion of the basement where are located an anteroom and an interestingly formed chapter room.
Halfway up the main stairway to the second floor you enter a guest room with bathroom and closet, for use as a cloak room for the ladies at fraternity functions, and a guest bedroom as occasion offers.
The second floor has twelve study rooms, each with two closets and each designed for the use of two men. The main hall on the second connects with a south hall and rear stair, and to the left with a main stair to the third floor. Here slightly above the second floor is located the principal toilet room – a large light room with tile floor and the most sanitary fixtures obtainable. Adjoining the toilet room is a shower room with four showers. This room is separately ventilated in order to avoid the steaming usually associated with shower stalls, which are a part of the main toilet room in most buildings of this type.
The central portion of the third floor is devoted to a dormitory with large windows to the south and west. This room is sufficiently large to accommodate fifty men and in addition to window ventilation has roof dormers to the front and mechanical ventilation through the roof. The east wing is occupied by three additional study rooms, each for two men, and in the north wing we have two guest rooms with private bath between, reached from the second floor by separate stair. In general the finish throughout the building is oak; the floors are oak except those on the third floor, which are pine.
As with any venerable building in-habited by young men with active imaginations, the Omicron Chapter house has developed a considerable body of legend around it: Was the house modelled after a royal Scottish hunting lodge? Just where exactly is the propeller, salvaged from a plane wreck in the backyard, hidden within her walls? Who was the “Ghost of the Beta Chi” in life? Just why is there a small (5'x5'x5') room, complete with radiator, beneath the dining room? The answers to these questions have remained unanswered to this day.
The Omicron house is certainly not short of interesting names for her rooms, the most ‘colorful’ of these is of course the “Red Room”. While it has changed location over the decades, the spirit remains. In recent years, the basement of the house has been known as the “Beta Chi” and hold a special place in the memories of those who have called it home. Other names areas of the Chapter house include: the halfway house, what was once a guest room; the penthouse, which was once a trunk storage room; and the '28 room, the library named for one of the Chapter's truly outstanding classes.
Posted on July 29, 2006 by oadmin