Maryland alumni remember time in former Sigma Chi house off campus

The abandoned Sigma Chi house was demolished on Wednesday morning. 

The walk up the path toward the three-story-high brick facade of Sigma Chi’s chapter house signaled the start of one of Barry DesRoches’ fondest memories.

That night more than 38 years ago, the 1980 alumnus attended his first fraternity rush party as a freshman.

“You’re trying to feel your way and figure out who you’re going to be in college and what you’re going to do,” said DesRoches, now president of Sigma Chi Gamma Chi Chapter Inc. “Then there’s this big, old brick house with white pillars — and it hits you.”

The house on 4600 Norwich Road, built in the early 1940s and unoccupied since 2002, has survived a fire, squatters and rebellious students.

Before the building’s demolition on Feb. 11, all but one of the original pillars had fallen. The colors of the once-red bricks were muted, blackened by fire. Boards ripped off the windows exposed shattered glass, while overgrown plants transformed the yard into a suburban jungle.

But some alumni said they remember the house as it used to be. Scott Werber, a Sigma Chi member and 1986 alumnus said that house is the place he formed friendships to last long after the last graduation cap was tossed.

“My fondest memory is being able to live somewhere with 49 of my best friends,” said Werber, the current chapter adviser. “It’s an experience you can’t get anywhere else.”

Along with DesRoches, Werber said saw the emptying of its final inhabitants when the chapter lost its charter in 2001, the havoc wreaked when trespassers lost control of an open flame, the scars left by vandalism — and its demolition, which began Tuesday when a yellow construction truck reduced the house to a mountain of gray rubble.

Sold by the chapter for below-market price to this university, the house had to be razed to the ground as a condition of the transaction. The demolition plans have been in motion since at least 2007.

“I can remember sitting up in the window in the back looking over the basketball court and just thinking, ‘Man, wouldn’t it be cool to come back [as an alumnus]?’” Nick Adid, a 1985 alumnus, said. “The idea of being able to continue that tradition, that legacy, maybe even have your own son live there — that would have been really cool.”

Adid, the chapter’s president during his senior year, said hosting the band Orleans in Sigma Chi’s backyard to an audience of 1,500 is one of his most vivid college memories.

Though the chapter was suspended for five years after failing to meet newly imposed Department of Sorority and Fraternity Life requirements, it became active again in 2009. The chapter house is now on Fraternity Row in Zeta Beta Tau’s old house.

Some measures have been taken to restore the memories from the old house, such as relocating the large white cross that used to stand in the yard of the old house.

Christopher Kennedy, a Sigma Chi fraternity member and 1985 alumnus, said the Norwich house’s backyard was the setting for everything from “Great Greek Gatherings” news to pickup basketball games with the university’s basketball players, who then lived in Leonardtown.

“Our endearing Sigma Chi Norwich Road house, for several memorable decades, welcomed many timid young freshmen and years later sent them off into the world as confident, well-rounded college graduates,” Kennedy said. “It will be missed by many.”

There are many “Significant Sigs,” recognized by this university’s chapter for their accomplishments after graduation, who lived in the old house, Kennedy said.

Some of these alumni include House of Representatives Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Outback Steakhouse co-founder Robert Basham, former Dean of Students Fred DeMarr and Jack Heise, aka “Mr. Maryland,” who played lacrosse for this university before going on to fight in World War II and later become president of the school’s alumni association and its two largest booster groups.

Waldo Burnside, the former CEO of retail corporation Carter Hawley Hale, is also a “Significant Sig.” Though he never lived in the old Sigma Chi house, the 1949 alumnus still felt a connection to it.

“It was quite a time,” Burnside said. “I enjoyed it and learned a lot about people and the growing-up process.”

As a freshman in 1945, Burnside experienced college alongside World War II veterans. Seven of these veterans started the Sigma Chi chapter the year Burnside joined, taking a pledge class of 25 that first fall.

“It was a very interesting, different group because you had all ages,” Burnside said. “About half veterans in their mid- to late twenties, and the rest of us were very, very young — and it worked very, very well.”

However, Burnside and other alumni said it’s the chapter’s members, not the house, that matter most.

“There’s certain ideals that are inherent in Sigma Chi, and these guys exemplify them in how they go about being in their fraternity,” DesRoches said. “So it was a wonderful place with wonderful memories, but what’s truly important is the brotherhood strength of the chapter.”