"Our House"

A Profile and Brief History

Our House

aka:
The house on Chandler Street
Rich's house
Chi-Rho House
The Big Yellow House
(View of the side from across the street)

NOTICE: "The House" has ceased operations, and I have since moved to another location after 26 years. This page is being kept "up" solely as a historical reference.

The Purpose of this Page

This page exists primarily to supply those who may find a listing for the house at the University of Wisconsin Campus Assistance Center with additional information about this particular household. Others who may find this page via other routes should still find it useful as well.

First, A Few Nuts and Bolts Details

For the sake of those who are scanning through pages of listings in an attempt to find a place to live for the next academic year, here are some "practical details of interest" to supplement that which you have already seen in the CAC listing:

• This household is probably best described as a "proprietary," family-style, Catholic household. The "proprietor" (for lack of a better word) is Richard Bonomo, a staff engineer and former graduate student of the University of Wisconsin, and the one remaining "founder" of the household who is resident there.
• The household is Catholic, and serves a religious purpose: to provide living accomodations to (primarily) UW students who desire a place to live where the development of the whole man -- the soul and intellect -- according to the teachings of Jesus Christ as understood and taught by his Church is encouraged. There are currently no scheduled common devotional activities for the residents -- unless you count grace before dinner --, but the house has a Catholic ambiance, and there are sporadic devotional activities at the house. In recent years, this has consisted primarily of hosting "dinner and Rosary" nights for students and other young people attending UW-area Catholic Churches. In years past, the house has hosted weekly "meditations" conducted by a priest, and classes in Roman Catholic doctrine. Residents are encouraged (though not required) to assist at Mass daily.
• In keeping with the Catholic nature of the household, and in order to avoid causing scandal, we generally do not have women in the house overnight. (There have been some exceptions for parents visiting during vacation periods when the house is largely vacated.) When female friends or relatives visit, we try to find friendly female households in the vicinity to put them up at night. We return the favor when those households have male friends visiting.
• Location: The house is located in the Vilas area, near the intersection of Charter and Chandler Streets, which is two blocks south of St. James Church, and about 15 minutes' walk from most parts of the main section of campus.
• The house "normally" houses six men, and is currently configured to have four single bedrooms, one double bedroom, a kitchen, a pantry, a living room, a dining room, and a library. It is possible to have six private bedrooms, but only by doing away with the living room. In those years when we have not had enough residents to fill the entire house, the household has occupied the first floor, and the second floor has been leased to other people by the Landlord.
• This is a NON-smoking household.
• Our lease prohibits pets, strictly!
• We rotate the cooking, and have a common pantry. All food is held in common. As of the Spring of 2000, food bills were running at about $130/resident/month. We eat fairly well, and have frequent dinner guests.
• The cooking is *NOT* vegetarian.
• We have laundry facilities and a dishwasher. These facilities are owned by us (sort of), not by the landlord. This means that we don't have to throw coins in a machine every time we want to do a load of wash. It also means that when they break, we fix them...
• We have no driveway or garage. Residents can get a street parking permit from the city for about $24/year (the last time I checked). This allows you to park all day in the "two hour" zones. During snow plow season, you have to make sure that you move your car back and forth across the street each day. The other inconvenience is that during football Saturdays (about 6 per Fall), you dare not move your car, if you want to keep your parking spot, until the game is more than half over.
• Total rent for the house for the 2000/2001 lease period (Aug16-Aug 14) is not yet set. It should be no more than $1990/month. This comes to about $340 for a single room, and about $300 for a double room, assuming 6 tenants. The rent includes nothing beyond the use of the building. Electricity, gas, water, and, of course, telephone and newpaper (we have a common subscription to the Wisconsin State Journal) are all separate.
• There is a common house accounting system to keep track of who has paid for which bills, and who owes or is owed what. The system is not perfect, but it works well.

A Very Brief History

This house was started in the Fall of 1984 by Richard Bonomo, at that time an Electrical Engineering graduate student (who still has a Ph.D. program on ice to this day); Michael Foral, at that time a Chemical Engineering graduate student; and Norberto Carballo, a Chemistry post-doctoral fellow from Spain.

This household was started for the purpose of acting as a "springboard" or base of operations in Madison for Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic organization (canonical designation: Personal Prelature) whose mission is to teach laymen (men and women) how to become saints -- how to seek perfection -- in the course of their ordinary professional, domestic, and social activities of each day. The founder of Opus Dei, a Spanish priest by the name of Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer y Albas, was beatified by Pope John-Paul II a few years ago. Though Opus Dei has been more or less active in the city of Madison, and on the UW campus, since the 1950's, activity is at a relative lull, and there have not been any formal activities of Opus Dei at the house in a number of years. This could resume at any time, though there are no plans to currently.

Over the course of the intervening years, many have lived in the house from a variety of majors. Many of the house "alums" have graduated and are now busily raising families, developing careers, and the like.

The Living Environment

The living environment is best described as "family style." The men who live at the house are not just a bunch of guys who happen to under the same roof for the sake of saving some money (which may or may not be the case anyway), or because it happens to be convenient (which it may or may not be). The men who live in the house are expected to take a certain interest in the welfare of the others, and to seek to help make life easier for the others by deeds of service and of charity. It is a Catholic household, and residents ought to seek to make concrete those words of Jesus Christ: "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another."

The personality mix varies, of course, as different people come and go over the course of the years. We have usually succeeded in making a good environment and in having quite a bit of fun in the process. Most people who have lived at "the house" have been glad they did.