The Round House is a Good Ole Dog

"You'll Never Be A Loner in that Round House Made of Stoner" ..... King Tut

Architecture represents identity as much as it serves as a blueprint for construction and perhaps no building on the campus of the University of Alabama is as strongly associated with its residents as Tri Delta’s Round House.

The Round House will welcome its last class of Tri Delta members in July and, in August, its last class of Tri Delta pledges. In nearly a 50-year span it has stood among sorority houses designed in more conventional ways and styles familiar to the campus. If it were a novel, it would be Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. If it were a movie, it would be Old Yeller.

Old Yeller was the quirky, loveable, wise stray that provided protection, familiarity, and love. Like a family pet that adopts a personality fitting of its surroundings and companions, the Round House, has become an identifiable symbol of Delta Mu.

• It has the confidence to stand among houses of styles more stereotypical of a southern sorority.
• It has the audacity to show a flash of independence.
• It has the spirit to humor and surprise as the halls, stairwells and bathrooms are navigated.
• It has the intelligence to use resources wisely on the odd, irregular, pie-shaped lot.  

All of these traits influence its members just like Old Yeller influenced the Coates. The line between family and beloved pet gets blurred just like the line between beloved brick home and chapter.

We knew when deciding to build a new house it would mean saying good-bye to the Round House. It was a bittersweet decision but a pragmatic one. Initially, the University said other groups … a new sorority or a non-Greek residential community … would probably take ownership of the house from it. The University is paying Delta Mu over $2 million for its equity in the house and this money will be applied to the debt of the new house.

However, in a turn of events prompted by sororities on campus who chose not to apply or build on one of the new lots but who now realize they must expand somehow to answer those of us who did, the University is allowing Alpha Chi Omega to purchase the house from it. They plan to tear down the round house to make way for their expansion.

Tim Leopard, Assistant Vice President for Construction, will attend our House Corporation meeting next Thursday at 5 p.m. at the Round House to give us more information. You are encourage to attend to find out more about the Alpha Chi’s plans as well as KD, Pi Phi, and Chio whose expansion plans will impact our new house. The University, through Dr. Lynda Gilbert, the Vice President for Financial Affairs, has been working on ways to accommodate these other chapters and Tim’s presentation should shed light on how this will be managed while still keeping sorority row in the central realm of campus.

Meanwhile, we have members of the chapter working on a historical record of the Round House and encourage anyone with information or stories surrounding its design and construction to please email us at uatridelta@gmail.com, post to our Facebook Site Delta Delta Delta – The University of Alabama or get in touch with a committee member.

We hope to have a farewell party next February and tie it in with class events and a preview of the new house which should be finished at that time (the residents will hopefully move over during Spring Break in early March).

We will keep you abreast of all these developments.

Until then, remember how much the Coates had grown to love Old Yeller, but realized the time had come for Travis to step up and put him down but  don’t  worry, he learned to love the new puppy in the end because it had Old Yeller’s best traits.