Animal House of Mason Street

Stripper Pole, kegerator keeps Swim House swimmin' with parties

MORGAN RIEHL / staff photographer The six roomates lounge on their front porch overlooking Mason Street.

This is the latest in a series of articles in which the style editor takes a tour of some of the most interesting student homes at JMU.

The Delta Tau Chi house, the mischievous fraternity immortalized in John Hughes' classic, "Animal House," had an anatomically correct glass mermaid behind the bar whose breasts were the home of the fraternity's goldfish.

Well, the Swim House on Mason Street has a gold-painted "stripper pole" in the basement. But like the inhabitants of the Animal House, they also have a bar and seem to know how to have a good time.

It's 2 p.m. and of the six guys that live in the "Swim House," several of them seem just to be rolling out of bed. Once seniors Jesse Nielsen, Brody Reid, Lee Shirke, Jeremy Bergman, junior Geoff Meyer and sophomore Adam Gathman all have congregated on the front porch for their "Cribs" photo shoot Sept. 21, the fatal question of what exactly makes this house "Cribs" worthy is asked.

"We live here, isn't that enough?" Reid says.

Bergman saves his roommate's butt by offering, "It's not the house, but the chemistry of the people that live here."

Mason Street traditionally has been the home of a "Swim House," where generations of varsity swimmers have lived. All of the roommates are either current or former teammates.

There is even a surfboard that has been passed down from one group to the next, a sort of "passing of the torch," a rite of passage if you will. It serves many functions, a cardtable, among others.

The house itself probably is not unlike most of the houses and apartments inhabited by a group of guys in this or any other college town — kind of messy, "borrowed" signs on the wall from the Godwin pool area in particular, collages of photos of what can be remembered from some of their more memorable nights.

As the youngest, Gathman usually is subjected to good-natured teasing and pranks courtesy of the other roommates. One such example involves a novelty beer helmet and being stuffed into a closet not much bigger than a high school locker.

It seems each roommate plays their own role. Nielsen is the unofficial leader, Reid is the smartass who will warm up after awhile, Bergman is the nice guy, Meyer is the "strong silent type" and Shirke is pretty much up for anything, including climbing on the roof and volunteering to "sample the goods" from the kegerator for photos.

However, the real fun is in the basement. A random pole has been spray painted and turned into a "stripper pole," on which female party guests are encouraged to display their talents. A "kegerator" compliments the bar, which allows the roommates to brew their own beer. They claim to host "the best non-fraternity basement parties at JMU."

It's not hard to believe.

An hour after the initial awkward meeting on the front porch, the guys have opened up with some funny stories, offered a look into each of their rooms, extended a party invite and provided some much-welcomed insight into the male group dynamic.