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HomeMy WebLinkAbout722 S Willson 2009 MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD For the Montana National Register of Historic Places Program and State Antiquities Database Montana State Historic Preservation Office Montana Historical Society PO Box 201202, 1410 8"'Ave Helena,MT 59620-1202 i Property Address: 722 South Willson Ave. Site Number: 24 GA 1790 (An historic district number may also apply.) Historic Address(if applicable): i i i City/Town: Bozeman County: Gallatin i Historic Name: Sigma Chi Fraternity House It Legal Location i Original Owner(s): Sigma Chi Fraternity PM: Montana Township: 2S Range: 6E Current Ownership: ® Private ❑ Public SW '/4 SW'/4 SW '/4 of Section 7 i Current Property Name: Sigma Chi Fraternity House Lot(s): 23-26 i Owner(s): Sigma Chi Fraternity, Beta Rho Chapter Block(s): 7 i Owner Address: P.O. Box 145 E Addition: Fairview Year of Addition: 1883 Bozeman, MT 59771 I USGS Quad Name: Bozeman Phone: Year: 1987 i Historic Use: Fraternity House UTM Reference www.iiris.mt.gov/tonofinder2 i Current Use: Fraternity House ': ❑NAD 27 or ®NAD 83 Construction Date: 1962 ❑Estimated ® Actual Zone: 12 Easting: 497003 Northing: 5057557 i ®Original Location ❑ Moved Date Moved: National Register of Historic Places Date of this document: 10/31/09 NRHP Listing Date: Form Prepared by: Mark Hufstetler i Historic District: Address: 8 West Park, Suite 313 i Butte, Montana 59701 NRHP Eligible: ®Yes ❑No Daytime Phone: 782-0494 i MT SHPO USE ONLY ; Comments: Eligible for NRHP: ❑yes ❑no Criteria: ❑A ❑B ❑C ❑D Date: i Evaluator: MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD PAGE 2 Property Name: Sigma Chi Fraternity House Site Number: 24 GA 1790 ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION ® See Additional Information Page Architectural Style: OTHER: If Other,specify: Institutional modern Property Type: Residential Specific Property Type: Fraternity house Architect: William Grabow Architectural Firm/City/State: Bozeman, Montana Builder/Contractor: Wallace Diteman & Sons Company/City/State: Bozeman, Montana Source of Information: William Grabow interview Concisely,accurately,and completely describe the property and alterations with dates. Number the buildings and features to correlate with the Site Map. The Sigma Chi Fraternity House located on the northeast corner of Willson Avenue and College Street in Bozeman, Montana. Completed in 1962, the building provides residential and social facilities for the Beta Rho Chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity, a national organization for male college students. The building contains design elements evocative of both mid-twentieth century Modern institutional architecture and period Ranch style residential construction. The building faces west, towards Willson Avenue. It consists of two primary rectangular masses: a southern mass, two stories high with a basement, housing living room, dining facilities, and social areas; and a three-story northern mass housing sleeping and study areas. The floor elevations of the two masses are offset from one another, with the first floor of the north mass partially below grade. A narrow connector between the two primary masses houses the building's stair tower, and the bathrooms for the dormitory wing. The building is steel and wood framed, with a concrete foundation. Most exterior walls are veneered with a red fire brick, though areas of vertically-scribed wood cladding are also present, on the north and south elevations of the dormitory mass and the east elevation of the stairwell mass. (At least some of the brick may have been recycled from the 1908 residence that formeraly stood on this site.) Doors are a mix of wood and metal. Windows are wood-framed; most are fixed-light units,though the dormitory wing its characterized by three-part casement windows with a central fixed light. The shallow-pitch gable roofs have deep eaves and are surfaced with asphalt material. The roof structures are supported by large, exposed, laminated-wood beams. The southern mass of the building is visually defined by an open, two-story front porch that runs the entire length of the west fagade of the mass. The porch has unadorned metal support posts and a metal railing, and is accessed by sliding glass doors on both levels. The primary entrance is at the north end of the porch;the doorway is surrounded by a two- story-high area containing multiple fixed-light windows. The intermediate level of the porch terminates south of the entry, although the high roofline remains. This entrance leads to a two-story entry hall that features an open staircase leading up to the formal living room and library on the second level. The first floor of the mass contains a large dining room,with a kitchen at the rear. A"chapter room"for meetings and other activities occupies much of the basement level. An open,wooden stairwell near the far end of the entry hall also provides access to the second floor,as well as to the dormitory wing to the north. The dormitory wing is a three-story east-west mass providing sleeping and study space. As built, each level was identical. Wide central hallways were lined with closet space for use by the building residents, while a series of small rooms to the south each housed four beds. Other rooms to the north provided study areas that included built-in desks. This configuration largely remains on the first and second floors (though the built-in furnishings have been removed); the top floor, however, has been reconfigured with a hallway along the south wall and a row of MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD PAGE Property Name: Sigma Chi Fraternity House Site Number: 24 GA 1790 HISTORY OF PROPERTY ® See Additional Information Page Sigma Chi is a college fraternity for men, founded in Ohio in 1955, and now with active chapters located at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. The fraternity's Beta Rho Chapter was established at Montana State College (now Montana State University) in Bozeman in 1917, and has operated continuously ever since. The fraternity offers social activities and dormitory-style housing for its student members. In common with other fraternities and sororities at Montana State in the early twentieth century, Sigma Chi initially purchased an existing house for its use, rather than constructing a new facility. Soon after its establishment, the Beta Rho chapter acquired a large , 2-1/2 brick home at the northeastern corner of College and Willson, a neighborhood that included many of Bozeman's biggest and most prestigeous houses. The property, at the time known as the Fisher residence, had been constructed in 1908 for one of the children of Nelson Story, the Gallatin County's most successful nineteenth-century businessman. The fraternity occupied the Fisher residence until 1961, although the chapter's greatly increased increased membership in the years after World War II put a significant strain on the building. By 1961 the Beta Rho chapter boasted a total of 90 active members, but the old house had a residential capacity of only 32, with many members sleeping dormitory- style in a large room in the attic. In order to provide housing for a larger portion of its membership, the chapter in 1960 began an alumni fundraising campaign to allow for construction of a replacement house. The program was successful, and local architect William Grabow, a Beta Rho alumnus,was hired to design a new building. The building Grabow designed displayed a strong contemporary appearance, an architectural contrast to both the old house and many of the other buildings in the neighborhood. Simultaneously, though, the building's relatively INFORMATION SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY ❑ See Additional Information Page Beta Rho chapter, Sigma Chi Fraternity. Collection of handwritten scrapbooks, 1960-1963, located at the Sigma Chi house, Bozeman. "Beta Rho Moves Into 451h Birthday Gift." The Magazine of Sigma Chi 82:1 (Spring 1963):32-33. Grabow, William. interview by Mark Hufstetler, Bozeman, Montana, November 1, 2009. Rydell, Robert, Jeffrey Saffort, and Pierce Mullan. In the People's Interest: A History of Montana State University. Bozeman: Montana State University, 1983. Renewable Technologies, Inc. Bozeman, Montana: An Historic and Architectural Context, 2008 Revised Edition. Unpublished report prepared for the Department of Planning and Community Development, City of Bozeman, 2008. "Sigma Chi Plan New House; Bid Forms Out." Bozeman Daily Chronicle, May 14, 1961, p. 8. MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD PAGE 4 Property Name: Sigma Chi Fraternity House Site Number: 24 GA 1790 NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES NRHP Listing Date: NRHP Eligibility: ®Yes ❑No ❑Individually ❑Contributing to Historic District ❑Noncontributing to Historic District NRHP Criteria: ❑ A ❑B ®C ❑D Area of Significance: Arch Period of Significance: 1961-62 STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE ❑ See Additional Information Page The Sigma Chi Fraternity House is an excellent and well-preserved example of a mid-twentieth century building specifically designed and constructed to serve the unique needs of a Greek letter society a ssociated with an American University campus. These needs are reflected in the building's distinctive massing, designed to house a variety of housing and social functions under one roof. A number of such buildings were constructed in Bozeman between the late 1940s and the 1970s,for both fraternities and sororities; this is the largest and arguably most architecturally distinctive of that group of structures. The building also displays a number of design characteristics that are highly reflective of the era. The combination of brick and wood veneers, the shallow-pitch gable roofs, exposed laminated-wood structural members, large porch area, and the windowed entry hall are all evocative of Modern institutional design, while simultaneously providing a visual association with the Ranch-style residential architecture that characterized the time. This gives the building visual connections to both of its intended functions: organizational home and residential property. For these reasons, the Sigma Chi Fraternity House is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places,with significance under Criterion "C." INTEGRITY(location,design,setting,materials,workmanship,feeling,association) ❑ See Additional Information Page Bozeman's Sigma Chi Fraternity House retains a very high level of integrity overall,with virtually no substantial changes visible to the building's exterior. The original massing, materials, and fenestration pattern all remain wholly intact, and the building continues to strongly convey its historic appearance. The only notable exterior change is the addition of a concrete fire escape stairwell leading up from the chapter room in the basement. The stirwell is located in the porte- cochere, and is not readily apparent. An exterior sun deck was added to the roof of the porte-cochere at an unknown date after the building's construction, but it was removed about 2007, restoring the feature to its original appearance. Nearly all of the interior also retains its historic configuration and materials, One exception is the third floor of the dormitory wing,where the dormitory rooms have been reconfigured into a smaller number of larger spaces. MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PAGE Property Name: Si ma Chi Fraternity House Site Number: 24 GA 1790 ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION --continued long, narrow rooms that each extend from there to the north wall. An exterior fire escape, with a brick wall to the north, breaks the building's north elevation of the building. The vertical window bands on the east and west ends of the mass are defined by areas of decorative brick above and below the windows. A minimally-detailed, single-level open porte-cochere abuts the south wall of the building, partially sheltering an asphalt driveway that leads from Willson Avenue to a large parking area behind the house. Large metal signs on the building's primary fagade (historic) display the fraternity's greek letters and emblem. The front yard is distinguished by two large brick planters,which extend east to the house to the sidewalk area; they accentuate the house and provide a symmetry to the landscaping. HISTORY OF PROPERTY--continued subdued lines and residential character gave it a visual compatibility with the older buildings on the Willson Avenue streetscape. The new house was designed to separate living and sleeping areas into separate building masses. The building's three-story dormitory wing further isolated study, storage, and sleeping spaces; all closet space was located in a central hall running the length of each floor,with small four-person sleeping rooms to the south of the hall and study rooms with built-in desks to the north. The living area featured a large, two-story entry hall with an open stairway leading to the second-floor living room and library. A formal dining room and kitchen were located on the first floor, while the basement contained a large room designed for social events and chapter meetings. A driveway led through a large porte-cochere on the south side of the house, leading to a large parking area at the rear, and the front portion of the lot was decorated with large, symmetrical brick planters. Bids for construction of the new house were solicited in May 1961, and the primary contract was awarded to Wallace Diteman and Sons, a local building firm. The old house was apparently razed later in 1961, although some of its bricks were salvaged for reuse in the new building. Construction of the new house took place during the winter of 1961-62, and the building was ready for occupancy that fall. The house was dedicated at a formal banquet held there on November 3, 1962. Though Beta Rho chapter membership has declined in recent years,the house continues to serve its original function in 2009, little altered from its original design. MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD PHOTOGRAPHS 1'r( )er1. Name: Sigma Chi Fraternity House Site Number: 24 GA 1790 � �nl I I I ~J West elevation. View to east-northeast. _ r " 41 r r Porch and entry detail,west elevation. View to east-southeast. MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD PHOTOGRAPHS Pro vil Name: Sigma Chi Fraternity House Site Number: 24 GA 1790 � AMA r �1 I'NO tt P ��llll4• .,.GM wig Aigaii West and north elevations. View to southwest. y� 1 � d •L r i a M East elevation. View to west-southwest. MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD TOPOGRAPHIC MAP PROPERTY NAME: Sigma Chi Fraternity House ADDRESS: 722 Willson Ave Bozeman MT SITE NUMBER: 24 GA 1790 W+ Ir 1�9768 / 1 T., I s • . .i r ,; f �, q. oiler .� B1-9T GnNury 'L • 98£yPT SIGMA CHI • � , FRATERNITY HOUSE Y- � 24GA1790 - - Nil -P • / . it �� � _ `� /.ice• {/•,.Y;1�"`; -ti--- :, :'�iZ' � LOCATION DATA: UTM NAD 83 ZONE 12 USGS TOPO: Bozeman 1987 EASTING: 497003 CITY COUNTY STATE Bozeman Gallatin Montana I NORTHING: 5057557 SCALE: 1:24000 ITRS: T2S R6E S7 MONTANA HISTORIC PROPERTY RECORD SITE MAP PROPERTY NAME: Sigma Chi Fraternity House ADDRESS: 722 S Willson Ave Bozeman MT SITE NUMBER: 24 GA 1790 N W E LU Q Z Ln -------------' J J_ ---------'ILI L 1 ----------- -------------------- W COLLEGE ST 0 25 50 100 Feet LOCATION DATA: UTM NAD 83 ZONE 12 EASTING: 497003 CITY COUNTY STATE Bozeman Gallatin Montana NORTHING: 5057557 SCALE: 1:1000 TRS: T2S R6E S7