News
A College-sponsored insurance policy has thwarted Alpha Delta fraternity's attempt to build a 15-foot-high 'treehouse' on its property -- a project that has received recent attention in regional papers.
The 'treehouse,' which has already been partially constructed, is a wood structure built on four 20-foot telephone poles that would have boasted a 120-square-foot common room, two loft-like bedrooms, and a 72-square-foot front deck, AD brother James King '98 said.
Located behind the house in a cluster of trees near Ripley, Woodward and Smith halls, the 'treehouse' would have been insulated, heated, and provided with electricity and computer hook-ups, so two brothers could live in it year-round, King said.
King said he and AD brother Jonah Blumstein '98 initiated the project this summer, after being denied College housing for Fall term, and enlisted the architectural aid of Matt Welander '97.
Welander designed the "one-and-a-half story building," King said, explaining that he and Blumstein served as laborers.
President of the Alpha Delta Corporation John Engelman '68 said the project was halted once the fraternity found out the 'treehouse' would be uninsured under its present policy.
"The College negotiates the insurance policy, an umbrella policy, that covers all Greek organizations," Engelman said.
"Once we were told that it would impact our insurance, there was no question that we had to abandon it [the treehouse]," he said, adding "no fraternity or sorority can exist without insurance."
Currently covered up with a blue tarp, the raised building will "be taken down in a timely manner," Engelman said.
King said he and Blumstein were disappointed and said that "it was actually going to be very nice."
Describing the 'treehouse' as "a menace to take apart," King explained the four poles were sunk five feet into the ground.
Jay Barrett, the Zoning and Codes Administrator in the town of Hanover said the fraternity brothers researched the project thoroughly.
They "did their homework very carefully," he said.
