UA Cribs is finally back and ready roll through the rest of the new houses! This fall, we featured six of the new Greek mansions on campus, but guess what? We still have more to go! We would like to open up the spring semester by introducing one of the newest sorority houses on the row, Alpha Phi.
The women of Alpha Phi have technically moved into their third house on campus. Looking back at the sorority’s history, the chapter was at the University of Alabama from 1932–1963 where they lived in their first house beside the stadium. Their original house is actually a part of Bryant Denny now! Once the chapter was reestablished, they moved to Colonial Dr. where they were once again located beside the stadium in the fall of 2008. However, this was not the first organization that lived in this quaint house on sorority row. Beta and Lambda Chi have also experienced living in the house on Colonial Dr.
As wonderful as the house was, it was quickly outgrown and outdated. The women experienced multiple issues that were limiting them in meeting as a chapter. The kitchen was too small to comfortably feed and seat all the women for dining. A chapter room was also lacking in the house and it became impossible for the sorority to find a place in the house large enough to congregate for meetings. Lastly, the housing was no longer a luxury. The bedrooms, bathrooms, and space were entirely outdated. Overall, it became unsuitable for the women to live. That is when the organization chose to make a difference and build a new chapter house down the road!
The Odyssey asked Alpha Phi president, Shelby Wells, why the sorority chose to move locations as opposed to rebuilding in the same spot. Wells replied, “Actually, we would have loved to build on the same location of our old house and had gone through the process of architectural design and soil samples. However, the lot was not large enough to hold the chapter members and UA had restricted that we could only build as high as our neighbors, Phi Mu, which didn’t give us the space. They would also not let us build as high as our other neighbor, Bryant Denny.” With that being said, the women of Alpha Phi started from the ground up and was the first sorority house facing Paul W. Bryant Dr.
When the two years of construction were completed, the women moved into the brand new, 39,500 square foot mansion! This fabulous UA Crib has four stories that now house 65 compared to the old house that only housed 32. The basement level of the house includes the chapter room, a TV room, mailboxes, executive offices, bathrooms, a laundry room and plenty of storage space. The main floor of the house is where the kitchen, dining room, formal and informal living room, and the men's and women’s restrooms are located. The house director’s suite and the security office is on this floor as well as cubbies for the members’ backpacks and additional storage. The next two floors are where the members live. The bedrooms are made up of doubles, triples and one quad that is the guest room. The residential floors also have many, exquisite features that contain a study room, kitchenette, TV room, laundry room and bathrooms.
Now that the chapter has moved into this huge house, we asked how the house was purchased and about the concern of house bills increasing. The president, Wells, explained considering it is a significantly larger house, it is in proportion to the other new houses on campus. As far as purchasing the land and construction, the house finance is similar to what the other Greek organizations are doing as well. Wells gave a description of how the house was purchased by stating, “The house was purchased through a combination of savings from the local House Corporation Board and loan from The University of Alabama. The House Corporation Board makes monthly mortgage payments to UA.”
We also asked Wells what life was like for she and the women while waiting for the construction process to finish. She replied, “The anticipation was out the roof especially because I was previously recruitment chair and planning for a recruitment without physically being inside the house was really challenging. The girls moved in Aug. 1, our first day of rush workshop!” With formal recruitment around the corner from the move in date, this lead to the next question of if there were in conflicts with the construction? Wells indicated that the women had to work around the last minute construction while last minute touches were being completed during workshop, but by recruitment, everything was complete.
Now that the house is complete and the women are officially moved in, the chapter as a whole is ecstatic! The women of Alpha Phi have made an extreme upgrade from their previous house and are more than comfortable in the new house. Wells said that she has seen a meaningful change among her sisters and declared, “The members are much more close because there are more girls that live in the house. We have a really nice TV room where we love to watch shows together and hang out! There are also more members coming to the house, especially for meals. Now that we have the accessibility to more kitchen space, we were able to hire a full time baker and have fresh bread, muffins and cookies on the daily!”
Congratulations to the women at Alpha Phi! We hope that current and new members to come will enjoy building memories and traditions in the freshly built chapter house.
