Category: Projects

Stained Glass

There are eight double hung, stained glass windows on the second floor level of the street facing sides of the building.  Some, like the one pictured here, span the 2nd floor and the mezzanine or balcony level of the building.


The wooden window frames on the south side of the building are the most badly deteriorated.  The bottoms of which are badly dry-rotted, compromising the support for the glass.
We believe these windows replaced some earlier leaded glass windows of the same shape during the 1922 building remodel. Lead and/or zinc cames that hold the glass pieces in place typically last about 100 years, which now in 2019 is only 3 years away. The collapse of the wooden frames has accelerated their deterioration.
We may be able to forestall the restoration of the windows on the west side of the building by servicing the wooden frames, but the four on the south side are approaching critical condition.

The Historic San Pablo Hall Preservation Project

Back stairs

The fourth floor was added on top of the existing building in 1922, one year before there was such thing as building codes. These stairs we’re added in 1953 and intended as the second exit from the rear of the top floor.

Back stairs from the 4th floor to the 2nd floor meeting hall. The protrusions on the left side are seismic retrofit steel posts under sheetrock.

These stairs aren’t considered safe as a fire exit by current standards because they open into another room instead of being continuously protected from smoke all the way to the outside. Our dining hall has been red-tagged because of this building design flaw.
We also have a rear fire escape, but it is in poor condition, and it doesn’t have enough capacity to carry 150 people in a hurry (half of the calculated dining hall capacity). There is no point in repairing it because it won’t count toward removal of the dining hall red-tag.  Our options are to either re-route the back stairs or to add a 4′ wide metal staircase to the outside of the building.  Both options are expensive.
This issue is extremely problematic for our ability to use the building.

The Historic San Pablo Hall Preservation Project

The Hub Vallejo

From a Facebook post dated Tuesday, August 6, 2013:

We are the Vallejo Odd Fellows of San Pablo Lodge #43 in the heart of downtown Vallejo. Our lodge has been an integral part of this community for 160 years.

Vallejo grew up around our lodge–the fate of this city and our lodge have always been intertwined. Since the Naval base closure in 1996 and the Great Recession, both our city and our Lodge have fallen on hard times.

We have a plan to change that.
A group of Odd Fellows, artists, and community members have come together to create an art center right at the heart of downtown Vallejo in the long-empty storefront of the Odd Fellows lodge. Traditionally, Odd Fellows lodges support their community service work by renting out the ground floor retail space of their lodges in the booming center of the towns they serve. This model worked for the Vallejo lodge for nearly 150 years but since the 1990’s, downtown Vallejo has slowly turned into a near-ghost town, with empty storefronts lining what was once the booming main street of Vallejo. We need to bring business and life back to downtown.

Find out what’s happening at The Hub today at
thehubvallejo.com.