Fraternity History & More

Frank Lloyd Wright was born on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin. His parents divorced the year Wright graduated from high school. In 1886, Wright enrolled at the University of Wisconsin – Madison to study civil engineering. He became a member of Phi Delta Theta.

He had to work to support his studies and family so he worked for Allan D. Conover, a professor of civil engineering. Chicago architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee designed Unity Chapel, a small chapel in Wyoming, Wisconsin as a commission for Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Wright’s uncle. The young student was hired to look “after the interior.”

Unity Chapel

The experience is said to have been the impetus for Wright leave the college in 1887 and head to Chicago where he worked for Silsbee. 

In the course of his acclaimed career as an architect, Wright designed three fraternity house, none of which has ever been built.

The first fraternity house he designed was for Phi Gamma Delta at the University of Wisconsin. Wright’s cousin Richard Lloyd Jones, a Phi Gam, was a member of the Mu Chapter’s alumni board. The fraternity’s property was at 16 Langdon Street. Wright designed it with a Mayan influence. The house designed for Phi Gamma Delta was never built and the plans drawn up by a local firm were used instead.

The Facebook page of the University of Wisconsin Phi Gam chapter. The picture on the left is the house that was built instead of the Frank Lloyd Wright house pictured in the drawing.

Another view of the proposed Phi Gam house (courtesy of Phi Gamma Delta)

Wright’s second design for a fraternity house was for the Chi Chapter of Sigma Chi at Hanover College in Indiana. The house was to have been named in memory of Walter L. Fisher. Wright’s design was somewhat at odds with the traditional Georgian design of the campus and the house was never built. That design was similar to the third of Wright’s fraternity house designs, the one he proposed for the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at the University of Florida.

The story of the Zeta Beta Tau house at the University of Florida is told by Kenneth Treister, who was a young architecture student and ZBT member when it happened. Wright was invited to give a lecture and he accepted the invitation. Treister had a car and drove Wright around Gainesville. Treister wrote:

One afternoon, October 23 to be exact, because he made it so easy to feel
comfortable in his presence, I got up the nerve to ask if he would consider designing our fraternity house. I was a member of Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, having joined originally when I attended the University of Miami for my freshman year. He agreed, on one condition: That the architectural students would take an active part in the building construction. I quickly agreed.

Mr. Wright had a standard fee for this service as well: A flat 10% of the project’s
cost. In our case, that came to $10,000 since the ultimate construction budget was $100,000. We went to our families and others to raise the money. We managed to raise quite a lot, but not enough. No matter. Mr. Wright moved ahead on his design. (To read Treister’s account)

As an aside, Metropolis magazine published a letter by Virginia Richards Schwerin, who studied at the University of Wisconsin, as did her older brother who was a member of Phi Delta Theta. She related that when the Phi Delt chapter celebrated the chapter’s centennial in 1957 invited Wright to the banquet. He was nearly 90, but he accepted the invitation:

Much to the excitement of the fraternity, he attended and was seated on the dais. He was alert and engaged, it was reported; but he didn’t eat much. In photographs it was discovered that a fork was under the table in front of him. Was that a reason for the light diet?

Two years earlier, Wright finally had a degree from the University when he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. He died in 1959.