Summerhouse
The favorite spot of many a brother— and surely of every sweetheart— is Lambda Chi’s Gazebo. A handsome hexagon of timber and shingle, it sits atop a rock promontory overlooking Cascadilla Gorge, offering a sweeping view of the Giant’s Staircase waterfalls and College Avenue bridge to the east, the creek and path below, and out to downtown Ithaca to the west. A more atmospheric place is not to be found on West Campus.
The gazebo, or summerhouse as older generations know it, has a place in public and private memories alike. Bill “Veg” Noon ’84 began a tradition of margarita parties on the first day of spring when the temperature reached 70 degrees. But it is also the spot of many a first kiss, and perhaps a bit later, its share of proposals.
Atop the gazebo is a green light, evocative of the single green light at the end of Daisy’s dock in The Great Gatsby: an unattainable dream— but one which, for a moment during his college days, the brother of Lambda Chi Alpha is able to grasp.
The gazebo sits on the eastern of two of the property’s rock promontories into Cascadilla Gorge, and a shelter has existed on this one since before the house was purchased in 1921. The pavilion has been steadily improved over the years, most recently in 2009, when many of the support beams, which had been vandalized, were replaced and refinished.