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The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at Lafayette College. Photo taken December 2005

Fraternity houses and sorority house are houses lived in by fraternities and sororities for members of each organization to live and work together as a whole. In addition to serving as housing, fraternity and sorority houses often also host social gatherings, meetings, and functions that benefit the community.

A fraternity or sorority house serves multiple purposes other than the basic aim of housing. First, it emphasizes the bonds the members share as "brothers" or "sisters." Second, the house serves as a central location for the events and administration of the fraternity.

Fraternity and sorority houses are typically owned either by a corporation of alumni, the sponsoring national organization, or the host college. For this reason, such houses may be subject to the rules of the host college, the national organization, or both.

Due to the increase in widely publicized alcohol-related deaths on college campuses, many national organizations and host colleges have implemented dry housing policies in which the consumption and possession of alcohol is prohibited on house property.[1] Some colleges make this policy conditional on overall grade performance.

Because of residential requirements, some college campuses and national chapter administrations also prohibit members of the opposite sex on certain floors of fraternity and sorority houses.

Fraternity and sorority houses range in size from three to twenty bedrooms or more. They can usually be identified by large Greek letters or flags on the front of the house. The larger houses generally have a large meeting room and/or dining room, commercial kitchen and study room. There is usually a lounge of some sort, access to which is often restricted to fully initiated members. Fraternities and sororities will also often maintain a chapter room, to which only initiates may ever be admitted and even whose existence may be kept secret. The walls of the house may be decorated with pictures of past chapter events, awards and trophies, decorative (or historic) paddles, or composite photos of members from past years.

In some fraternities or sororities, only the representatives live in the houses while in others the entire fraternity or sorority may live in the house. Other, larger fraternities or sororities may have more than one house to house all of its members.

At many large universities, it is traditional for Greek organizations to enjoy the use of large, Victorian style mansions on campus. In more modern times, some university administrations have sought to seize or buy out these houses and convert them into academic use or demolish them and convert them into additional parking. This ends the use of the house for social purposes; the university may justify such actions as a measure to curb drinking on campus.^{[citation needed]}

The first fraternity house in America was established by the Chi Psi Fraternity in 1845 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan^{[citation needed]}. The establishment was called a "Lodge" because of its resemblance to a hunting lodge. Chi Psi still refers to its "fraternity houses" as Lodges today.

• Greekopedia: A wiki for Fraternities and Sororities

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