Kappa Alpha reopens with renovated KAstle

By 1999, Monday mornings meant ankle-deep debris in the side yard of the once-venerable Kappa Alpha fraternity house. By the end of 2001, the chapter was suspended by the University and its own national organization.

Steven Hastings, professor of food and resource economics and a KA from the ‘70s, is now adviser for a resurgent KA chapter, and he has a goal. Hastings wants to sit on the stunning curved porch of the circa-1905 frat house when a tour guide stops squarely in front of him and proudly announces, “And here is the KA house.”

With a new band of handpicked brothers and a $700,000 house renovation, KA is much closer to tour-stop status.

The hardwood floors are gleaming again. An American flag waves from the freshly painted porch. The KAstle interior has been gutted and reconstructed. An Oriental rug graces the dining room, and a red-felt-covered pool table dominates the dining room.

The renovated first floor evokes memories of Hastings’ own frat days when brothers in suit jackets and ties hurried to reach the dinner table each night before the house mother was escorted to her chair on the arm of a member.

KA was at the center of a strong fraternity system then, complete with toga parties and formal teas featuring sterling silver service, Hastings said.

By the mid-‘90s, keg parties trumped tea parties until the University imposed sanctions and the national fraternity revoked the members’ charter in 2001. KA local alums joined with the national and got their fraternity back on campus this year.

The house reopened in August, and the new members have pledged not to drink or smoke inside the house.

Three things are different than they were five years ago—there is an active alumni board watching over the house on a daily basis, Stephen Bucy, EG ’03,and his wife Christy, have been hired as live-in house managers, and there are 48 new brothers walking down the front sidewalk that features a brass fraternity seal bearing the motto “God and The Ladies.”

Jeff Wyrwa, a sophomore biology major who serves as the new president, noticed the signs advertising a new fraternity and called the national last year.

“I felt this would give me a great opportunity to be in a leadership position, whereas at the other fraternities, I would have to work my way up.’’

He said it hasn’t been difficult to attract more than 100 students to alcohol-free rush functions because the house features a 60-inch television, a pool table, a stone fireplace, cable TV, UD Internet connections, a porch big enough to hold a barbecue on, a parking slot for every resident and a prime campus location across the street from Smith and Purnell halls and the Colonnade that links them.

“The house is a great asset for us. It’s a prime location. It’s great having a 10:10 a.m. class and being able to wake up at 10 and still be on time,” Wyrwa says.

KA offered bids to 13 pledges, and all accepted.

Bucy, a senior civil engineering major attending UD on a ROTC scholarship, worked alongside the alumni 12 to 13 hours a day prepping the house for August occupancy. His wife spent nine hours one day scrubbing the leftover spackling out of the nine bathtubs in the bedroom suites.

When the Bucys married in June, he became ineligible for the resident assistant position he had held in a campus residence hall, so they faced the prospect of paying for housing.

“When Dr. Hastings called me and discussed this, I thought it would be too good to be true,’’ he said, “but I wasn’t sure if I wanted Christy living here with 20 other guys.”

“At first I thought I might lock myself in a closet, but it’s really not bad,” Christy Bucy said. “They’re a good group of guys.”

The KA members are responsible for keeping the house and the grounds presentable, and Bucy is responsible for managing the operation of the house.

“The alumni don’t want to see what happened before happen again, not with what they’ve put into the house,” he said.

The alums, aware that many current UD students come from middle and upper class homes where they’ve always had their own rooms, knew they couldn’t recreate the living situation they enjoyed decades before--50 members sleeping in two huge rooms and sharing one large bathroom.

They polled members of other UD fraternities to learn what features they would want in their dream frat house--privacy, Internet access, cable, convenience, parking.

“We built in some plums to make it attractive,’’ Hastings said. “How many other students on campus can say they have a parking space right outside their door.”

Now KA members are looking forward to spring when the KAstle will be the showpiece at their celebration of KA’s 100th year at UD.

“If you were to talk to a cross-section of alumni, the pride they take in the house would be a common thread,” Hastings said. “There are a lot of memories. You would be surprised at the number of brothers who met their wives for the first time in this house.”

“We all understand that this is not a ‘Let’s fix up the house and go away phenomenon,’” he said. “We know it’s a ‘Let’s fix up the house and work with the guys for the next five or 10 years.’”

Hastings, who lives in Newark, parks his car at the house and stops in at least twice a day.

“These brothers are all capable of being leaders,” he said.

Article by Kathy Canavan
Photos by Kathy Atkinson

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