SAE Lions
Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 8:47 pmBy Alan Peppard, DMN Entertainment section
Under the leadership of President Gerald Turner, the infrastructure at Southern Methodist University has gone from leaky, creaky Georgian to state-of-the-art modern with a plethora of buildings paid for by the $550 million Campaign for SMU.
New edifices like the Meadows Museum, the Dedman Life Sciences Building, Gerald J. Ford Stadium and the Laura Lee Blanton Student Services Building went up with little fuss or muss.
But one change that is attracting lots of attention is the relocation of the SAE lions.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of SMU is familiar with the two stone lions that have guarded the door of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house on Binkley for more than 50 years. According to Dallas blueblood Billie Leigh Rippey, her late husband, attorney Bill Rippey, was SAE president when he found the lions at a house that was being demolished on Swiss Avenue. He relocated them to the frat house where every Christmas they're painted red and green and every Halloween they're painted orange and black.
But the wrecking ball is on its way for the SAE house as well as the Lambda Chi Alpha house to the east and Letterman Hall to the west. They'll make way for a new 850-car parking garage.
Big kitties want to stay
The lions were supposed to be moved to the new SAE house under construction on Dyer.
Easier said than done.
"They each weigh more than 1,000 pounds," says Don Donnally, Bear Stearns' stock broker to Dallas' old money set. Don has been president of the SAE Housing Corporation since 1973. "The last time someone tried to move the lions was when a certain other fraternity tied a chain around one and tried to pull it away with a car," he says. "The lion didn't move but it did pull the back end out of the car."
The contractor for the new SAE house recently tried to lift one and ended up breaking it off at the paws. So it has now been dispatched to a restorer who says the lions were cast in 1912. The other lion is still standing his post waiting to be moved.
In the meantime, Don ran across an identical pair at the Gerald Tomlin Antiques store in Highland Park Village and secured them as back-up lions for the new house. The original lions will be at the front door, and the new ones will be placed in the rear of the house at the entrance to the alumni pavilion donated by Vernon banker and rancher Joe Chat Sumner.
High on ourselves
While I did attend SMU, I was not an SAE. I was a Lambda Chi and from our rooftop sundeck next door we could enjoy our liquid refreshments with an unimpeded view into the SAE house. From the roof, we could, quite literally, look down our noses at the SAEs.
That situation looked like it would change now that the new SAE house and the new Lambda Chi house face each other across Dyer Street. Then I learned that the elevation of the Lambda Chi land is six feet higher, so my brothers can still look down at the SAEs.
Under the leadership of President Gerald Turner, the infrastructure at Southern Methodist University has gone from leaky, creaky Georgian to state-of-the-art modern with a plethora of buildings paid for by the $550 million Campaign for SMU.
New edifices like the Meadows Museum, the Dedman Life Sciences Building, Gerald J. Ford Stadium and the Laura Lee Blanton Student Services Building went up with little fuss or muss.
But one change that is attracting lots of attention is the relocation of the SAE lions.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of SMU is familiar with the two stone lions that have guarded the door of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house on Binkley for more than 50 years. According to Dallas blueblood Billie Leigh Rippey, her late husband, attorney Bill Rippey, was SAE president when he found the lions at a house that was being demolished on Swiss Avenue. He relocated them to the frat house where every Christmas they're painted red and green and every Halloween they're painted orange and black.
But the wrecking ball is on its way for the SAE house as well as the Lambda Chi Alpha house to the east and Letterman Hall to the west. They'll make way for a new 850-car parking garage.
Big kitties want to stay
The lions were supposed to be moved to the new SAE house under construction on Dyer.
Easier said than done.
"They each weigh more than 1,000 pounds," says Don Donnally, Bear Stearns' stock broker to Dallas' old money set. Don has been president of the SAE Housing Corporation since 1973. "The last time someone tried to move the lions was when a certain other fraternity tied a chain around one and tried to pull it away with a car," he says. "The lion didn't move but it did pull the back end out of the car."
The contractor for the new SAE house recently tried to lift one and ended up breaking it off at the paws. So it has now been dispatched to a restorer who says the lions were cast in 1912. The other lion is still standing his post waiting to be moved.
In the meantime, Don ran across an identical pair at the Gerald Tomlin Antiques store in Highland Park Village and secured them as back-up lions for the new house. The original lions will be at the front door, and the new ones will be placed in the rear of the house at the entrance to the alumni pavilion donated by Vernon banker and rancher Joe Chat Sumner.
High on ourselves
While I did attend SMU, I was not an SAE. I was a Lambda Chi and from our rooftop sundeck next door we could enjoy our liquid refreshments with an unimpeded view into the SAE house. From the roof, we could, quite literally, look down our noses at the SAEs.
That situation looked like it would change now that the new SAE house and the new Lambda Chi house face each other across Dyer Street. Then I learned that the elevation of the Lambda Chi land is six feet higher, so my brothers can still look down at the SAEs.
Don't get me wrong...I like to party just as much as the next fraternity.
