Delta Upsilon Fraternity House

The Delta Upsilon Fraternity House is the oldest residential fraternity/sorority house building at the University of Michigan still occupied by the organization which constructed it. The house is an early example of the residential-scale work of Detroit architect Albert Kahn. Delta Upsilon was founded as a non-secret fraternity at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1834. Michigan Chapter was founded in 1874 and officially chartered on April 10, 1876. The Delta Upsilon Quarterly of October 1, 1902, reported that 'The crisis in the struggle for a new chapter house is past, and thanks to the generous aid of loyal alumni, the finest fraternity building in Ann Arbor is in the process of construction.' The chapter's new home was constructed at a time when enrollment at the University of Michigan was growing rapidly. The graduating class of 1902 had a total number of 777. Delta Upsilon was the first to build a house in this neighborhood southeast of the campus. The October 1, 1902, Quarterly explained that the site, 'though somewhat secluded, ... is not far from the campus, and nearby street car lines make it easily accessible from Main street and the station.' Delta Upsilon's move appears to have marked the beginning of a migration of fraternity and sorority houses to this part of the city which was well under way by the 1920s. Delta Upsilon has occupied 1331 Hill since the building's completion in 1903. Although the 1878 Delta Kappa Epsilon Shant is the oldest building in Ann Arbor still used by the same fraternity or sorority which built it, it is a meeting place and contains no residential quarters. The Delta Upsilon house is the oldest residential fraternity/sorority house in the city still occupied by the same organization which constructed it. The building is also one of the oldest surviving residential-scale commissions of Albert Kahn. Kahn (1869-1942) arrived in Detroit from his native Germany in 1880. Largely self-taught, Kahn began his architectural career in 1884 as an office boy with Mason and Rice, one of the city's leading architectural firms. A scholarship won from The American Architect & Building News allowed him to travel for nearly a year in Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, and England, sketching interesting buildings and architectural details as he went. Mason and Rice made him chief designer soon after his return. In 1895 Kahn with George W. Nettleton and Alexander B. Trowbridge formed their own firm of Nettleton, Kahn & Trowbridge. Trowbridge left the firm in 1897 and Nettleton died in 1900. Kahn practiced with George D. Mason for a short time, but then, from 1903 to 1918, with Ernest Wilby. Albert Kahn, Inc., was established in 1918. The Delta Upsilon house is one of the oldest surviving of more than two dozen Ann Arbor buildings -- from houses to large academic buildings for the University of Michigan -- which the Kahn firm designed over a nearly forty year period from 1898 to 1937. The only earlier Ann Arbor example may be the Georgian Revival house at 1555 Washtenaw Avenue built in 1899 for professor of chemistry Edward DeMille Campbell. Delta Upsilon, like other Tudor-inspired houses Kahn designed in the 1900-1910 period, including the 1908 Cranbrook House in Bloomfield Hills and Kahn's own house in Detroit, reflects both the English Domestic Revival and Kahn's strong interest in the Arts-and-Crafts movement (Kahn was a 'founding craftsman' in the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, established in 1906).

The Delta Upsilon Fraternity House is a two-and-one-half-story, basically rectangular, side-gable, Arts-and-Crafts-influenced, Tudor Revival building clad in brick in the first story and stucco in the second, with half-timbered and shingled accents. The balanced, south-facing front has a shallow E-shaped plan, with a slightly projecting, front-gable wing at each end of the facade and a narrow, three-story, front-gable projection marking the center of the facade. The center of the facade between the wings displays a recessed portico supported by four round columns. The central front-gable section has casement windows at the attic story, vergeboards with applique detailing, and half-timbering in the upper stories. The facade features casement and double-hung windows grouped in units of two, three, and four. Shed dormers containing paired casement windows pierce the slate-clad roof. The house's first story contains a large entrance hall occupying the central third of the building. This is flanked on the east by a dining hall with kitchen behind and west by a living room with attached sun room. A double-run staircase in the hall with its lower landing facing the central front entrance provides access to the second and third (attic) stories, which contain living quarters off a central corridor in each story. The first story -- especially the hall, with its beamed ceiling, panelled walls, and knee-braced posts flanking the staircase -- displays a decorative scheme inspired by English late Medieval domestic interiors, but has an overall Arts-and-Crafts feeling. One of the principal interior decorative features is a panelled recess in the center of the living room's west wall on axis with the hall that, framed by Tuscan columns and entablature, contains built-in seats flanking a Pewabic-tile-decorated fireplace with an elaborately carved mantel and overmantel depicting the fraternity logo. A proposed renovation will upgrade the building without altering its historic character. The renovation will include the addition of a small wing in matching style to the back of the building's east end to provide a larger kitchen, second stairway, and handicapper-accessible ramp and restrooms. Delta Upsilon stands in a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century neighborhood located a short distance southeast of the University of Michigan's Central Campus. The house stands well back from Hill Street on a large, rectangular lot that contains a lawn with remnants of the wooded grove in which the house was built in front and a parking area in back. A drive along the east edge of the property provides access.