Tour of 532 Beacon Street
Welcome to 532 Beacon Street, the residence of Alpha Thetas since January 1919. The chapter rented the house for a few years before that, eventually purchasing it a year after MIT moved from Coplay Square to Cambridge. It was originally owned by financier Thomas Lamont. Built in the "somewhat pretentious Back Bay style of the 1890's," it was given as a gift to Lamont for graduating Harvard Law School.
It wasn't our first house! The first meetings were held in the rooms of the members but in November of 1882 they changed to Berkeley Hall. In 1886 they leased a suite of apartments near the Institute. 1887 saw a move to Oxford Terrace; 1888, the Hotel Clifton. In 1890, Sigma Chi moved to an apartment on Huntington Avenue. In 1902, they moved to 1067 Beacon Street, Brookline.
When the United States entered the First World War, the fraternity house closed down, all students having been drafted, and then sent back to school in uniform. A few weeks after the Armistice, the brothers reassembled and rented rooms in the old Fritz-Carleton Hotel on Boylston Street. This location was unsatisfactory, but soon a house was found which had been unoccupied for years. It was located at 532 Beacon Street.
So please, look around! You should probably start where everyone starts: on the first floor.