“We do not haze our pledges, but it would be nice to have the spring’s pledge class contribute something unique to the house to leave their mark,” he said.

Open Door Policy

This semester’s pledge class will join the fraternity two years after it lost its old house. With its purchase, Sigma Chi is now the only campus fraternity with its own building, and the only social club that has members living in its residence.

And unlike final clubs, which only let certain people into their houses and restrict certain rooms to members only, Salzberg said the Sigma Chi house will not have any exclusive parlors or rooms.

“Sigma Chi is about friendship and having a good time, about building relationships and not on exclusivity,” he said.

Salzberg said that Sigma Chi is even looking for people who are not members of the fraternity to live in the house over the summer, provided there is space available.

Though the rent is low, current members helped pay for the house to supplement alums’ donations and money from a settlement Sigma Chi received when it left its former home two years ago.

From 1996 to 2002, Sigma Chi shared property at 43-45 Mt. Auburn Street with another social club, Pi Eta Speakers Associates.

In 2001, Pi Eta decided to sell the house, and did so a year later after agreeing to pay Sigma Chi an undisclosed amount for their share of the house.

This payment helped significantly to defray the $940,000-cost on Sigma Chi’s new property. The fraternity has only a decade of alums to draw on for donations.

“Our young alumni base made it a particular challenge to raise enough money, but our success is a testament to how much everyone in the organization cares about it,” Salzberg said. “This is a huge feat for a young organization.”

—Staff writer Nicole B. Urken can be reached at urken@fas.harvard.edu.