Melanie Leonard looks back on her two years living in the Delta Gamma Sorority house with fond feelings.
But the 64-year-old advisory team chairman for the UF’s chapter of the sorority could only watch Wednesday as a demolition crew bulldozed her old stomping grounds, and the first permanent sorority house at 808 W. Panhellenic Drive.
“It’s bittersweet, but it was time,” Leonard said, who joined Delta Gamma in 1971. “We looked into having it renovated, but the cost of the renovation was going to exceed the cost of bulldozing it and rebuilding.”
About five years ago, the chapter started planning the rebuilding, and a contractor was chosen in the past year. The house should be finished next year in July, Leonard said.
The new three-story house will have an elevator, 34 rooms, 71 beds, dedicated study rooms and an arts and crafts room. There will also be rooms to work out, have meetings and have proctored tests, Leonard said.
The house will include a suite for the house director and a guest suite for visiting members of Delta Gamma executive offices.
Without a house to meet in for the time being, the chapter will be holding their meetings in Emerson Alumni Hall, the Press Room at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and the Reitz Union.
Despite the renovations, the members will have memories of the previous house. An anchor given by the Fall pledge class of 1957 will be refurbished and kept at the house, Leonard said.
Delta Gamma was colonized at UF in the Fall of 1948 and became a chapter in April 1949. The sorority built its house in 1952.
Beth Pelzer, the vice president of Delta Gamma’s house corporation board and recruitment advisor, lived in the house for three years between 1969 to 1973. She said that most of her sisters went to the library to study then.
“Because you have access to everything at your fingertips on your computer, our women now, some go to the library, but a lot of them study at home,” Pelzer said. “A lot of them have classes online.”
Pelzer said the new house’s study spaces will help accommodate these technological advancements.
“We’re just trying to make it for the women of the 21st century,” Pelzer said.
Follow Sloan Savage on Twitter @sloanasavage and contact her at ssavage@alligator.com.
Delta Gamma’s house on 13th street is under construction.
