It looks similar to any other elegant, well-tended Beaux-Arts townhouse on Riverside Drive.
The lovely house has a brick and limestone facade, copper-topped dormer windows, iron-railing balconies, and an arched window framed in stone. The unusual roof is a hipped roof, meaning all sides slope downward.
But the cartouche at the top embossed with Greek letters reveals that this residence near West 116th Street joined the cityscape with a special purpose in mind.
Completed in 1899, it’s the longtime home of Delta Psi—a fraternity at Columbia University, whose campus is centered a few blocks east on Broadway.
Also known as Saint Anthony Hall, it was the first fraternity to build a chapter house after Columbia’s 1897 move from today’s Rockefeller Center to its current Morningside Heights location.
The designers of the building had Columbia connections: Henry Hornbostel was an 1891 grad, and George Palmer, a Delta Psi member. (Above, the house in 1906)
A fraternity that owns a house as beautiful as this one must have a deep history at Columbia. “Saint Anthony Hall, founded in 1847 as a literary society to promote a love of literature among its members, is Columbia University’s oldest and most distinguished fraternal organization,” states the fraternity website.
“Saint Anthony Hall” comes from the day the organization was founded, January 17, which is the feast day of St. Anthony the Great.
The fraternity’s first house was an 1879 stunner at 29 East 28th Street (above). Designed by James Renwick (also a Columbia grad), this red and yellow Renaissance-style holdout still stands. It has a curious resemblance to the Riverside Drive house, perhaps serving as architectural inspiration.
In 1903, the presence of the Riverside Drive fraternity house met with praise from the New York Times, describing it as “one of the handsomest college society houses in the country.”
Though Delta Psi/Saint Anthony Hall is a fraternal organization, it’s clearly not the Animal House kind.
Coed since 1969, the chapter house, according to the fraternity website, “serves as a haven from the bustle of its urban environs, providing members with a secluded space to pursue academic and extracurricular endeavors.”
[Third photo: Wikipedia]
Ephemeral New York 