While some students find starting a new school year to be a challenge, the difficulty was amplified for the brothers of Nabor House, who spent the first month of school without a permanent home. 

Nabor House, 1002 S. Lincoln Ave., is an agricultural, non-Greek fraternity, which was founded in 1939 on Christian values. The Nabor House fraternity board decided to rebuild its house last year, when the University required fraternity and sorority houses to have a sprinkler system. 

During the transition, 17 freshmen pledges and four active members have been living in Illini Tower since school began. The 15 other brothers lived in Hawthorn Suites at 101 Trade Centre Drive in Champaign.

Logan Frye, president of Nabor House and senior in ACES, who was one of the active brothers who stayed at Illini Tower to help the freshmen integrate, said living out of suitcases at the hotel was difficult on these members. Frye said that each week, members couldn’t check in until 2 p.m. Sunday and had to check out by noon Friday. They also had to find alternative living arrangements for the weekends.

Frye said the house had already been in need of repairs, so they decided to start over, a plan that had been in works since 2005. 

“The old house was an outdated facility that held 34 to 36 men comfortably,” Frye said.

Jeff Ray, vice president of the Nabor House fraternity board and University alumnus, said they began fundraising in July 2011. 

Shortly after graduation ceremonies in May 2012, the old Nabor House was torn down and construction began. Ray said the process went rather quickly because they used homebuilding company Homeway Homes. Ray said the board chose to use the company because they were on a time constraint and Homeway Homes’ system allowed for fast construction.

“(The modules) are like big Lego pieces they put together in their factory and then come and actually set on-site … which allowed them to keep on the tight timeline over the summer,” Ray said.

Even while the demolition was taking place, Homeway was building the modules in their factory in Deer Creek, Ill. By the second week of July, all modules were installed.

They were on schedule to move in on Sept. 15; however, the building was not yet up to city code, pushing their timeline back almost three weeks. Finally, on Wednesday, the 36 men moved into the new Nabor House.

The new facility has three floors with 11 study rooms, recreation rooms, a library, living room, dining room, kitchen and a large bedroom with bunkbeds for all members. It has a capacity of 40 people.

Having the chapter live in different places was difficult for all of the members, Frye said. Clayton Myers, freshman in LAS, said being so close together at Illini Tower helped the pledges bond more than they would have living in the old house. In order to get to know the active members who lived in the hotel, the chapter met a few times each week. 

“Transitioning into Nabor House has been a lot more difficult, but transitioning to (college) hasn’t been bad at all,” Myers said. 

Myers said this experience will make the new members value Nabor House a lot more.

“It should be a lot better than IT or the old house,” he said.

Liz can be reached at [email protected].