Once again, Psi Upsilon's home is its Castle

Eight years after being kicked off campus, the fraternity is slowly readjusting to life in the Castle. When the Psi Upsilon fraternity moved back to the Castle this summer, displacing Penn's community-service residential program, the building's atmosphere changed -- literally. A stuffed deer's head and elk's head, both recently purchased, now greet visitors to the building's dining room and living room. The heads, oriental rugs, leather club couches and other furnishings are part of the brothers' attempt to feel at home again, eight years after Psi U was evicted from the historic building for kidnapping and abusing a member of a rival fraternity, and 100 years after the fraternity originally built the Castle for $30,000. The fraternity recolonized in 1995 and moved back to its house this fall, with 18 of the total 22 brothers living in the house. The Community Service Living-Learning Program, which occupied the house during Psi U's seven-year absence, has since moved to the 12th floor of Hamilton College House, or High Rise North. "I'm very supportive of the Community Living and Learning Service Program," said Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Director Scott Reikofski. "But the house was built by Psi U and they've been an institution at Penn for a long time." He added that he was optimistic about the fraternity's future, noting that "they've set a standard that's high and they're sticking to it." Most brothers emphasize that the kidnapping incident is in the past, and stress that they are looking to the future. And they hope the names "Psi U" and "the Castle" will again be synonymous and interchangeable, as they had been previously. Psi U President Todd Bishop said he sees the fraternity's perseverance during its struggle to return to the Castle as a source of pride for both him and the chapter. "I think our biggest accomplishment was surviving the 2 1/2-year process to get back on campus," the Wharton senior said. Alumni were the driving force behind the chapter's return to Locust Walk, spending "endless hours for the past eight years" lobbying administrators to approve the recolonization, Bishop said. College senior Bart Riley, the fraternity's alumni relations chairperson, said that without the alumni, there might not be a Psi U chapter on campus now. Chapter alumni are also contributing financially, helping the brothers refurnish the house, which the University had renovated substantially in 1991, shortly before the community-service program moved in. Those structural renovations, which had been designed to bring the building up to city standards, cost more than $500,000. The fraternity is having a new 16-foot dining room table built because, as Bishop explained, the old one didn't quite past muster. "The legs were rotten, so we christened the fireplace with them," he said. The building's full-length curtains were all replaced, with work done by the same people who originally made them 20 years ago, and the fraternity is re-finishing their pool table. The brothers hope to have the refurbishing finished by Homecoming weekend, when the alumni have their first chance to see the house again. "All the alumni are very excited to have the house back," College sophomore Jeremy Lawson said. Lawson, who is also the fraternity's scholarship chairperson, is a member of the first pledge class to live in the house since 1990. He chose Psi U because he felt he could have a bigger impact there than at a more established fraternity. "I saw an opportunity to build a fraternity," he noted. Psi U made its official return to the Penn social scene Saturday night with its first party in the house. "I think we introduced the house to everyone as it was eight years ago," Bishop said. "It's a vibrant social organization." The Castle, which was designed and built by Psi U brothers in 1898 for $30,000, is a historic landmark. It is the first building to be built as a fraternity in the United States, explained Alumni trustee Ramon Baguyo, who graduated in 1986.