First of all, The Deke House has 18 beds, five doubles and eight singles.  We fill every bed, so there are only Dekes living in our section.  Also, there is only one door to our section and that is the only access.  In short, the entire three-floor building is all Dekes.  On the first floor we have a kitchen and a commons.  Our R.A. lives in another building on the quad.

Compared to other fraternity sections, you can see why we think of it as a house.  Most sections are just a line of rooms in the middle of a residence hall with multiple doors and entrances.  This means there are students not in that fraternity who not only live on the same hall, but also have free and unrestricted access to wander through that section.  Also, only a few other fraternities have their own kitchen, and many fraternities have to share their commons with unaffiliated students or other living groups. This is not to say that sharing is bad, but having our commons all to ourselves is pretty nice.  Many fraternities have obscurely located signs or benches while our sign hangs right above our door and our bench is right in our front yard.  Finally, most fraternity sections have their R.A. living right in the middle of their section.

In short, not only does our section have the structure of a real fraternity house, this structure creates an environment that feels like a house.  There are never strangers wandering through the house, and they certainly aren’t using a back entrance to get to our section (there is no back entrance).  Brothers frequently leave their doors wide open so other brothers can drop by and hang out.  Because we all share this space together, there is no threat of vandalism, theft, messes and destruction like you would find in a dorm where you don’t know half the other students.  The Deke House is essentially the model of a residential community at Duke University.

Additionally, The Deke House is located on Craven Quad, easily the most open, accessible and sociable quad on campus.  It is located in the heart of west campus, a two minute walk from the bus-stop, Wilson Recreational Center, the Bryan Center, the Great Hall, Perkins Library, and any other dorm on West Campus.  We are sitting on primo west campus reality.