Looking for a multi-million dollar fixer-upper? Your search may soon end. Recently, board members of the Chi Psi Fraternity house on Rugby Road, known as “The Lodge,” voted to put the 100-plus year old property up for sale for “north of $2 million,” says board member Paul Wright. The fraternity bought the house in 1950.

“The Lodge is at a crossroads,” wrote fraternity president Rob Robertson in a fraternity newsletter last August. “Its very survival is at stake.”

The fraternity had just five pledges earlier that spring, and Robertson wrote that over $200,000 in repairs and upgrades (the Lodge is currently assessed at $903,700) were needed to remain competitive with other housing options for UVA undergrads.

“Structurally, it’s in good shape,” says Wright, “but it needs some work.”

Although the fraternity’s board considered other options for the Lodge, Wright says, they eventually voted to sell the property– the option Robertson described as the “most drastic” because relocating the fraternity would “disassociate us from our rich history and unique location.” With the proceeds from a sale, says Wright, Chi Psi hopes to find a place closer to the other fraternities on Grounds.

If the 10,000-square-foot house could talk, it would have plenty of stories to tell. It was originally built around the turn of the century as a private residence (it has a pool constructed in 1908, as inscribed in the concrete), and the building was later expanded and redesigned by famed local architect Eugene Bradbury in 1914 for the Charlottesville Country Club. According to a 1915 article in the Daily Progress, the Country Club quickly became the center of society and fashion in Charlottesville, hosting lavish dances with a guest list that included Mr. & Mrs. Edwin Alderman and nearly every other distinguished member of the legal, business, and academic communities.

Much later, according to Wright, the Lodge played host to other notables including Prince Albert, Ted Kennedy (who is rumored to have crashed his car into the white pillars out front, says Wright), and the Dave Matthews Band, who played a gig there in 1992.

The Country Club, however, was short-lived, and the property was sold to R. J. R. Bing, better known as Bobby Mainfort (pictured right), who operated the place as the White Pine Health Resort. Besides the swimming pool, there were also a number of cottages on the property that people used for short stays.

The Lodge’s potential sale causes some people concern– perhaps for good reason.

“I sure hope this is not going to be another preservation battle,” says UVA architectural historian Daniel Bluestone, referring to another Bradbury designed building, Beta House, which was unceremoniously demolished last year by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation to make way for a new headquarters.

“A developer could likely get substantial tax credits for rehabilitation, and the building is well worth preserving,” says Bluestone of the Lodge.

Wright says the lesson of Beta House wasn’t lost on his fellow Chi Psi board members, who don’t want a similar fate to befall the Lodge.

“We would prefer it not be sold to a developer,” says Wright, “and would rather it be sold as a private residence.”

At 10,000 square feet, that’ll be one heck of a home on Rugby, brother.