When you’re as rich as Paul Allen, you really can go back to the future.
For years, Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, and his college roommate, Bert Kolde, kicked about the idea of rebuilding the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity house at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.
During Portland Trail Blazer games–Allen owns the team–talk would drift from basketball players and statistics to lingering memories of the good times they shared at the house, which had long since been razed.
Recently, students moved into WSU’s newest old fraternity. The reason is Paul Allen. Twenty years after Allen left WSU to work for a computer company, he has bankrolled the $3.1 million, ultra high-tech rebuilding of a fraternity house.
“Our level of excitement continues to grow,” Kolde said of the nearly complete project. “It’s gone from being an idea and a vision to a reality.”
Like Allen, Kolde has memories of a small fraternity filled with a mix of hippies, intellectuals and Army ROTC members. The Phi Kappa Theta house of yore was a modernish stucco box, low on amenities and deposited so far back on its lot that you could drive down WSU’s Greek Row without spotting it.
Before flushing, guys had to yell “watch it in the shower” to avoid scalding someone, said Mike Flood, the rebuilding project manager and Phi Kappa Theta alum.
Frigid in the winter and stifling in the summer, it was a fire hazard year-round because of the multi-unit plug-ins used to add electrical outlets. It was an adventure to even mow the lawn because of its 40-foot incline.
“It required one person to walk along the top of the hill with a rope tied to the mower, so that it wouldn’t fall down the side of the hill. And the person pushing the mower would borrow someone’s golf cleats or baseball cleats,” said Flood, 46, a Coast Guard commander in Astoria, Ore.
The house, long a vacant eyesore, was condemned and leveled. When other properties proved too problematic, Allen purchased that sliver of steep slope.
The house Paul Allen built is a technological dream inside a red brick structure whose white picture frames and bell tower remind onlookers of schoolhouses in their past.
“It’s high-tech, high-touch,” said architect Dan Clancy. “You have a sense the building has always been there. It represents an institution.”
Each room has its own temperature control. A 20-car parking lot is equipped with sensors that can trigger an underground electrical heating lattice, keeping the lot ice-free in winter.
Inside the fraternity, there are four jacks in every room–except closets–for lines to transmit voice, data and cable. For those who can’t afford personal computers, there’s an upper-level computer lab furnished with six high-speed Pentium 133 computers. Five have ink-jet printers, one has a laser printer; all run CD-ROMs.
There’s even a computer terminal in the kitchen for the 60-year-old cook so she can balance her budget and order food, Flood said.
To discourage the fraternity from becoming Phi Kappa Dweeba, Clancy designed a rec room with nice lighting, cozy furniture and a big-screen TV. Outside is a full-size basketball court.
For now, the house won’t have its own internal computer network. Instead of students sitting in their rooms exchanging thoughts via e-mail, Flood says, “we want people to get up and go visit with each other.”
Nor will the fraternity simply offer a life of leisure. The house’s organizational structure will include jobs–such as the treasurer, who will do budgeting, and the engineering officer, who will monitor heating and computer operations, submitting quarterly reports.
The fraternity reactivated six years ago. It had history, tradition, rush–but no house. Its 20-member nucleus was living in residence halls but moved into the house last week. Recruiting the 32 other members won’t be difficult, predicted George Bettas, Phi Kappa Theta faculty adviser: “They’ll get that many at rush in a heartbeat.”
Flood calls the project one of the most rewarding things he has done. “You feel like you’re passing something on to the next generation–only you’re doing it better.”
Flood was president of the fraternity when Allen lived there. Clancy, the architect, and Allen met in seventh-grade French class at Seattle’s Lakeside School.
Kolde, 42, the WSU roommate and confidant, has been tapped over the years to run Allen’s software company, Asymetrix Corp., to be vice chairman of the Trail Blazers and to serve as intermediary in Allen’s bid to buy the Seahawks.
Allen is expected to spend at least another $300,000 equipping WSU’s 40 fraternities and sororities along Greek Row with technology they need to enter the digital age. Washington Water Power, the utility that provides electricity on campus, is spending an equal amount to string fiber-optic lines on its electrical poles, connecting the houses to the university’s central computer processing center.
The notion isn’t to turn Greek Row into Geek Row. Linking the Greeks to WSUNet–which provides 24-hour e-mail access to professors and an express ramp onto the Internet–brings fraternities and sororities up to par with the already wired campus dorms. Fraternities and sororities will pay $25 a month, per house, to connect to the utility’s line. The project is expected to be completed in November.
