Funded by the Phi Beta Fraternity, a national professional fraternity of music and speech founded in 1912, Phi Beta Studio was built from 1929–1931 of granite quarried on the MacDowell grounds. The small studio is very simple in design, but displays a pleasing combination of materials with its granite walls and colorful slate roofing.
Inside is a striking brick fireplace designed with a corbeled mantel and stepped overmantel carefully worked in brick. The studio roof exhibits a distinct, decorative pattern worked out in red and grey slates. While a bathroom has been added onto the northeast corner, little else has changed the handsome, solid appearance of this studio.
Composer Louise Talma worked in this studio a total of 41 times over a 52-year period. When she died in 1996, she left a generous unrestricted bequest to MacDowell.
