CALTECH STUDENT HISTORY NOTES
LLOYD HOUSE
Adapted from the Caltech websiteLloyd House is smallest of the three north houses. The north houses were constructed in 1960 with funds provided by the Lloyd Foundation and other donors. Lloyd House was named in memory of Ralph B. Lloyd and his wife, Lulu Hull Lloyd. Mr. Lloyd was a member of the Board of Trustees of Caltech, 1939–1952. When the North House complex (see North Houses) was completed in 1960, Lloyd House was primarily populated by former off-campus residents.
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| Lloyd House courtyard |
Members of Lloyd House are called Lloydies. The house color is gold, and its motto is "I live and die for those I love", popularly corrupted by mis-reading the banner as "I live for those I love and die."
Lloyd House is governed by a student-elected, student-run Executive Committee, or "Excomm," of 9–10 members: President, Secretary, Superintendent, Treasurer, Social Director(s), Athletic Manager, and 2 representatives at large. The Social Director(s) and Athletic Manager are aided by the Social Team and the Athletic Team. There are 7 Lloyd Alley Support Reps (LASRs) and various appointed positions, such as Librarian, Fridgemaster, and Pool Monkey. Traditional house events include a meet-the-frosh Ultimate Frisbee competition, Airband, and Beach Trip (for which some members bike, roller blade, longboard, walk, or even run 42 miles from Caltech to Huntington Beach).
Lloyd House is located along the Olive Walk, and is an "L"-shaped, two-story building. At the intersection of the two branches of the house are "Lower Crotch" and "Upper Crotch," which serve as communal lounge areas.
Lloyd is divided into seven alleys: Purple, Kaos, VI (Virgin Islands), Fingal's Cave, Valhalla, Inferno, and Tropic. Each alley is decorated with theme-appropriate murals. Some murals include the expansive Purple mural in the theme of Japanese tsunami waves, the Escher mural in Kaos, the tropical mural in VI, the "Enjoy Crack" mural in Inferno that mocks the Coca-Cola slogan and contains a reference to Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, and the Lloyd Dragon in Fingal's. Several of the names have been changes since the 1970s when the names were: Headquarters (now purple), Penthouse (now Kaos), Virgin Islands, Cave (though Fingal still lived in this alley), Valhalla, Inferno and Creek (now Tropic). At this time the alleys were mostly painted solid colors with some minimal designs and pictures (including flames on the walls of Inferno).
The "shed" used to be a stand-alone building in the courtyard that housed Lloyd's big screen TV. Now the "shed" exists indoors, in a room adjacent to Valhalla that used to be part of the MOSH's office.
In the 1980s, Lloyd had two off-campus alleys, one named "The Place" and one named "Corona" (in reference to the corona of the sun as a metaphor for the outer reaches of Lloyd). The Place used to exist on the corner of Michigan Ave and Lura St; it was removed around 1988 and is now a parking lot. Corona used to be on the east side of Holliston Ave; it was removed in 1992 and the location is now the new parking structure. Because of Pasadena preservation laws, both houses were moved to other places in Pasadena. The Corona house was donated to a minister (for free) who restored it at 1792 Newport Ave, Pasadena, CA. The house is no longer owned by the minister, but it still exists.
Around 1990, in exchange for the loss of Corona, Lloyd adopted "the Quads" alley at 232, 234, and 236 Chester Ave. (The 232 and 234 addresses were still affiliated with Lloyd House until the opening of the Bechtel Residence, after which they became housing for graduate students)
Crippling Depression, a satirical comic strip that was published regularly in the California Tech, the student newspaper, was drawn and written by Lloydies.
In the past, some Lloydies have pulled elaborate pranks. The prank of the 1961 Rose Bowl was pulled off by the "Fiendish Fourteen," members of Lloyd House. Flashcards that were intended to cheer for the Washington Huskies football team were changed to read Caltech. The Hollywood sign was changed to read "Caltech" in 1987 by a group of Pageboys and Lloydies.
Every year since 1994, Lloydies have climbed onto the top of Millikan Library to construct the Lloyd Christmas Tree, a monumental structure of numerous Christmas lights strung together to resemble a 10-story Christmas tree topped with a 12-feet-tall "L." During the big wind storm of 2013, the L broke apart into pieces, so the Lloydies rebuilt the "L", but replaced it instead with a double "L" that is now 16-feet-tall. In 2018, neighbors and the city of Pasadena filed a complaint, as the Lloyd Christmas tree was a religious symbol. The tree is now referred to as the "Lloyd Lights". The latest off-campus pranks have been the pranking of MIT's Campus Preview Weekend, which included many Lloydies.
A folklore that has been passed down throughout the years is that of the Purple LSD lab. It has been said that sometime in the 1970s, a group of chemistry majors living in Purple blocked off some of the alley for a special project. The product of their project, was dubbed "Lloyd-grade" LSD, to denote its extraordinary purity. The rumor goes that it was one of the largest sources of LSD at the time. Nearly the entire senior class was expelled when the FBI invaded the house (only three seniors are mentioned in the yearbook from 1970), though folklore also holds that the perpetrators escaped capture, leaving only a teasing banner for the invaders reading "Welcome, FBI!"
Notable former Lloydies include: Cleve Moler (1961) – inventor of Matlab and one of the original Lloydies (having been "transferred" there from Ricketts House); Douglas Osheroff (1967) – Nobel Prize in Physics (1996) for discovery of superfluidity in Helium-3; Steven E. Koonin (1972) – physicist, Caltech Provost, United States Under Secretary of Energy for Science; David Brin (1973) – astronomer and science-fiction writer; Richard Lyon (1974) – inventor; Kenneth Suslick (1974) – chemist; Paul Steinhardt (1974) – physicist; winner of Dirac Medal and numerous other prestigious awards; Joseph Kirschvink (1975) – Nico and Marilyn Van Wingen Professor of Geobiology at Caltech; Taras Kiceniuk Jr. (1977) – hang-gliding pioneer; Nathan Lewis (1977) – George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry at Caltech; Gary W. Cox (1978) – political scientist; one of only three political scientists to have won twice the George H. Hallett Award; Schelte J. Bus (1979) – astronomer; Adam Weissman (1990) – co-founder of Applied Semantics, which was bought by Google and became AdSense; Gil Elbaz (1991) – co-founder of Applied Semantics; Adam D'Angelo (2006) – founder of Quora and early Facebook CTO.
A list of most of the Lloyd House presidents and resident associates is attached as Appendix L.
Last updated 4/10/04.
Christopher E. Brennen