Sigma Chi Fraternity
University of Southern California

After the war ended things were dramatically changed. USC, keen on expanding its footprint, had grown around the Sig property. For reasons unknown, the Navy returned the property not to Sigma Chi but to USC. The name of the Sigma Chi house was now Owens Hall after a naval flight trainee who had died during the war. President von KleinSmid was retiring and no longer protected Sigma Chi's interest. Owens Hall became the USC Bursar's Office but the Sigma Chi icons in the wrought ironwork on the front stairs remained. Sigs now had to go pay their tuition and fees in what was once their home. Owens Hall was finally torn down in the early 1960’s to make way for construction of the bookstore in the center of campus.

"As a history major at USC, I see Alpha Upsilon's loss of the 1927 house as its own unique contribution to the war effort," says Gene Erbstoesser, AU 1970 and a former Chapter Advisor. "And it didn't end there. Many brothers joined the armed forces, and AU Sig Col. Frank Kurtz was a much-decorated flying ace who served in both the Pacific and Europe and flew many combat bombing missions. His plane, ‘The Swoose’, is the only B-17 to have flown throughout the entire war and is in the US Air Force Museum."

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1947: THE OLD WHITE HUNTING LODGE

907 WEST 28th STREET

Even though there are no known supporting documents still in existence, Gertmenian concludes Alpha Upsilon “must’ve gotten funding from the school” for seizing its chapter house. It is presumed the compensation in the late 1940’s enabled the purchase, with no debt, of an existing building known as “the Old White Hunting Lodge” on 907 W. 28th Street, the location of the present-day chapter house. Craig Nason, who was instrumental as a recent graduate in getting the 1927 chapter house built, again helped arrange this new deal.

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Brother Ron Winger moved in as a pledge in 1948, just a year after Sigma Chi moved in. "It was very nice. Some double rooms, some single. A nice dining room and a cook," Winger says. Ron's best friend Jim McAleer, also 97, pledged Sigma Chi together with Ron. "It was like coming home," he said of this house. The two remain best friend.

“The Old White Hunting Lodge” was a wood-framed house painted white with a twin-peaked roof and central main entrance and looked - well, it looked like an old white hunting lodge. It was an attractive building, but it was not built for a fraternity. It quickly became clear a new house was needed. An adjacent lot with a vacant house was also purchased to give Alpha Upsilon a larger footprint for a future chapter house at 907 W. 28th Street.

In the late 1950’s, as the Sigs contemplated how they could afford to build a new house, some really big news came our way. “John Wayne offered to pay for our new house,” Gertmenian says. “John Wayne said he was going to build us a new house, so we tore the house down.”

The Alpha Upsilon Sigs moved into nearby temporary housing in a defunct dentists’ fraternity that housed about 15 men even when utilizing “some of the closets too,” jokes Gertmenian, who lived there as an undergrad. The Kappa Sigs got kicked off campus that year and the Sigs then moved into slightly larger housing temporarily. But the university rejected the plan to have John Wayne pay for a new house, perhaps hoping to quash any new fraternity house. The astonishingly generous plan to have John Wayne fund a new house collapsed anyway when Wayne’s manager allegedly mismanaged the actor’s fortune.

“It was a great gesture on his part even though it didn’t come to fruition,” says Kerry McCluggage (AU 1976), president of the Trojan Sig Foundation and a key player in Alpha Upsilon’s alumni base.

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THE CURRENT CHAPTER HOUSE

So, who paid for the current chapter house? Although the historical record is unclear, it appears this is how it unfolded. During the 1950’s, colleges experienced surging enrollment everywhere largely due to the GI Bill that provided tuition to legions of former soldiers. In the late 1950’s, just as Sigma Chi needed a solution, a federal initiative to build housing at college campuses provided money for schools to use. Alpha Upsilon was selected by USC for a grant to construct the current chapter house – but it came with strings attached. Ownership of the property and the house would be handed over to the university. The Sigs would pay rent and the university, as landlord, would pay for maintenance and repairs. At the time, it was too good of a deal to pass up.

The university, perhaps anticipating the demise of the Greek system, returned with a design not well suited for a fraternity, not engineered with durability and included a chapter room far too small. The house was a new, mid-century modern design in the contemporary style of the era known for its trendy boxy exterior and flat roof with vertical features and minimal windows. When it opened in about 1961, the Alpha Upsilon Sigs quickly filled the brand-new house – but it was now owned by the university. Sigma Chi was renting once again.

The current house does not sit well with Gertmenian. “From Day One, it didn’t make any sense. It might have been magnificent compared to the rest of The Row, but” it was not our concept and it was not what fraternity men needed, he says.

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FIRE!

In about 1988, a fire broke out destroying a number of rooms and hallways along one side of the house on the first and second floors, threatening to destroy the entire house. Quick firefighting saved the structure, but questions began to arise about whether the chapter house was sufficiently engineered, up to code and whether the contractor secretly cut corners otherwise required in the original contract. 

“It was built on the cheap. There was no chapter room of any consequence,” said Gene Erbstoesser (AU 1970), “a very small, cramped room.” 

Gertmenian, who was there during negotiations and the start of construction, and who briefly lived in the current chapter house, is more blunt. He called the current chapter house “just a piece of junk.” It was “not exactly the kind of house that could sustain all that rough wear. So, it was very expensive for [the university to maintain]. Finally, they started sending us bills.”

Nevertheless, from about 1961 to today – more than 62 years – the current chapter house has managed to survive. In the 2000’s, Trojan Sig alums bought back the house and property from USC – a profound, history-changing feat we will explore in a separate story later on this website. “We bought it back to control our own destiny,” says Dan Vogelzang (AU 1978), the Trojan Sig House Corporation president who was part of the buy back team.

The current chapter house has been the physical manifestation for a million incredible memories for hundreds of Alpha Upsilon brothers during its era.  Fraternity men are tough on a building, as everyone knows. But the current house has served its purpose and lived on much longer than anyone anticipated.

And it all came to us because of a World War II military mandate, a generous offer from John Wayne and a forced arrangement by university administrators who were only too glad to take ownership of a key piece of property.