When Theta Chi was first established at the University of California, Berkeley in 1910, they took over the old Kappa Sigma house; but they quickly found the colonial revival building unappealing, and commissioned the construction of a frathouse at 1730 La Loma Avenue in Berkeley. The Daily Planet's columnist Daniella Thompson proceeds to chronicle the building's history with considerable elan, lavishing detail on its architecture and design. The life of the Theta Chi students dwelling within is given somewhat shorter shrift, until 1959, when one of their initiates was diagnosed with acute nephritis, allegedly after being forced to consume raw liver—this coming shortly after a student had died from consuming raw liver at a University of Southern California initiation. (What was with all the raw liver?)
The Theta Xis were driven from the house shortly thereafter, done in by the bad press and an increasingly radicalized student body in the 1960s; though they would return in 1977, they would have to find different lodging, since their physical plant had since been occupied by a hippie commune and then sold to an outfit revealingly titled the "Living Love Center," an ignominious end indeed. For those wishing the sordid details of the former Theta Xi house's degradations, Ms Thompson's article offers plenty. Perhaps too many. ("'A very large bus, possibly a converted Greyhound, used as a permanent living quarters by its owner, is parked conspicuously in the front yard.'")
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