Although Danville is no longer the rural community it was 80 years ago, it still retains a small-town feel. The farmers market, Hot August Nights and the Kiwanis Fourth of July parade all add to that sense of being an intimate community. Also key is the Veterans Memorial Building, which has stood for decades at the corner of Hartz and Prospect avenues.
Much as when it was first established in 1925, the Veterans Hall (or the Legion Hall, as some call it) provides a gathering place downtown. Seniors, mother’s groups and exercise classes are only a few of the activities that take place within those walls on any given day.
Back in the day
The Veterans Hall came about after World War I, then known as the Great War. After the war’s end, Congress mandated that states would have to provide Veterans Halls in all their counties to commemorate the service and sacrifice of the country’s veterans. According to the Contra Costa Courier and Danville Journal of Oct. 10, 1924, the Danville Veterans Memorial Hall was built using a fund apportioned by the board of supervisors. The cost of constructing the two-story building with auditorium in 1924 was $18,000.The building opened with a dedication ceremony April 2, 1925. In order to help furnish the new structure, the Mt. Diablo Post of the American Legion held a series of monthly “dollar dances.” People would come from throughout the Bay Area to attend. Dancing would last much of the night with supper being served by the women of the Legion Auxiliary at midnight.
This tradition lasted well into the 1930s. Several dances were held each month at different locations, but the first Saturday was always held at the Danville Vets Hall. An article in the 1941 Walnut Kernel talked about the Danville post’s monthly events as one of the oldest continuous series of dances in Contra Costa County.
“On the first Saturday of each month, the post and women’s auxiliary have an old time dance where middle aged folk may enjoy the polka, schottische, mazurka, danvish polka, tye waltz, two step, three step, quadrille, lancers and other dances they learned when children,” it stated.
Mildred Fereira’s family moved to Danville in 1935 when she was a teenager, and she remembers the excitement of the Saturday night dances at the hall.
“Oh, it was the social thing to do. It was a pretty small town back then, so there wasn’t a lot to do so everyone in the community went,” she said. “The orchestra came from Livermore. Everybody went to the legion and if you didn’t have a date you went anyway and danced with everybody.”
The dances began to wane until the late 1940s when the Veterans Hall saw a resurgence after World War II, in the form of the Legion Follies.
“My husband (Leland Fereira) was the first commander after WWII,” said Fereira. “That was around December of 1945. Not long after the war, they started doing the follies. It was a way for them to get together and laugh. They sang, they told jokes. The boys all dressed up as showgirls. It was a help for all those young men who got old after the war.”
The follies were held each spring starting in 1946. The men would get together and perform songs and dances, playing the parts of both men and women. Fereira said the women helped in preparing the show but when it was show time, it was all men.
“The women made the costumes,” she recalled. “I had a little baby at the time, but I helped iron the clothes and sew some costumes.”
Fereira said the follies were a good thing for all the veterans returning from the war and it also became an intrinsic part of Danville.
“It was a town thing and the town really got into it. They printed up programs, took pictures, it was something to see,” she said.
Danville resident Gary Soto also remembers the Legion Follies. Both his father and uncle took part in them.
“I was only 12 or 13 at the time but I remember the way they dressed, the way they expressed themselves. I’ll never forget it,” he said.
The follies featured chorus lines, theatrical pieces and even live animals. One skit required the use of a donkey onstage. The follies lasted well into the 1950s.
As so many buildings did in the early days, the hall wore multiple hats. An article from the San Francisco Chronicle from the late 1920s said the Danville Veterans Hall also served as the home of the town library and the Chamber of Commerce. As the population grew, the library became too small and was eventually moved from the Veterans Hall in 1961.
Through the years, the hall also housed the county supervisor’s offices during the 1970s; served as a courtroom for Justice of the Peace Calhoun in the upper floor; and provided a meeting place for American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, plus dozens of other groups.
What about now?
That tradition of using the Veterans Hall to house groups and meetings continues on unabated. If anything, the use of the hall has grown over the years, becoming a true hub of the community located in the heart of downtown.VFW Post 75, American Legion Post 246, the Blue Star Moms and the Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley use the facility frequently. Meetings are held there monthly, as well as periodic fundraisers, such as crab feeds and banquets.
An ongoing partnership with the Town of Danville opened up the hall to parks and recreation activities such as karate, T’ai Chi, piano, theater, Spanish, aerobics, strength training and yoga. There are also classes held on estate planning, child safety, belly dancing, square dancing and even rehearsals by the Role Players theatrical group.
Senior activities also play a large role in the current configuration of the Veterans Hall.
“We see a number of senior uses here,” said Danville Mayor Karen Stepper. The Senior Citizen’s Club meets every week for bridge, bingo and lunch.
On top of all that, the Veterans Hall can be rented for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and banquets. Legion Post 246 member Chuck Brydon said that there is constant activity at the hall.
“Between the seniors groups, the town and our own events, we’re pretty busy here most of the time,” he said.
What the heck is upstairs?
Most who visit the Veterans Hall stay on the first floor, since that is where the main hall is located. Besides the sitting room to the right past the front doors and the auditorium itself, many people never realize there’s more to the hall than just the first floor.Others, however, ask, “What is on the second floor?”
Tony Carnemolla and Mac McCuskey are the trustees of the Veterans Hall and they say the answer isn’t anything too glamorous or exciting. A tour of the second story of the building revealed … a store room.
“This is where a lot of the groups who use the hall keep their stuff,” McCuskey said. “There’s things there for the Blue Star Moms.” Craft supplies, boxes, extra tables and a rack to hang uniforms fill the first of the two upstairs rooms.
The second room proved to be a bit more spacious.
“This is where we hold our officers meetings,” Carnemolla said. “We can’t hold membership meetings up here because it’s too small. We’d have to use the auditorium for it if we were having a full meeting.”
The meeting room has tables and folding chairs and a small coatroom off to one side. Carnemolla said that when the Justice of the Peace was stationed in the hall, this was where he held court.
While the mystery of the upstairs of the Veterans Hall may have lacked any overall mystery, it’s not without its own magic.
Danville Vice Mayor Mike Shimansky said that each Christmastime when the children of Danville line up to sit on the lap of Santa, the jolly old elf emerges from the upstairs.
“None of the kids see Santa come in,” said Shimanky. “He always comes down from up here.”
Where do we go from here?
The future of the Veterans Memorial Building remains undecided for now. Carnemolla, McCuskey and Brydon all say the building cannot stay as it is. Substandard wiring, plumbing and infrastructure all need to be addressed and the building itself must be brought up to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.Officials have begun to discuss the possibilities, and plans are already in motion that will lead down one of two paths. On one hand, the building could remain where it is on Hartz Avenue and undergo massive renovations. On the other hand, a new site could be chosen and a new, larger facility constructed.
For the past 14 months, a committee has been meeting to hash out the future of the hall. Mayor Stepper and Vice Mayor Shimansky are on the committee, along with Brydon, McCuskey, Carnemolla, Legion Post Commander Doris Sidwell and several others. Committee Chairman Tom Hawkins said the committee grew out of an ongoing coffee klatch to discuss town issues.
“We got to talking about what needs to be done with the Veterans Hall and it just sort of grew from there,” Hawkins recalled.
This is not the first time attempts have been made to update the hall. Brydon said in 1998 the town looked at what would need to be done to bring the hall up to code. At the time, officials were estimating that just the bare essentials would cost around $1 million.
Brydon said that based on the talks the committee has been having, all signs point away from renovation and toward the need for a bigger building on a larger piece of property.
“From an economic standpoint there’s just not enough space to meet the needs of all the groups that use this building,” Brydon said.
Stepper agreed.
“I’ve spoken to three different seniors in the past week who’ve all asked when they’re going to get a better facility,” she said.
The recent construction of a brand new hall serving Walnut Creek and Lafayette is helping to fuel thoughts of new construction.
“We’re talking to the project manager on the Lafayette building and trying to get some ideas on what it would cost us to do this,” said Hawkins.
Committee members still are examining all possibilities, but at this point it is looking more and more likely that they will be moving toward a sale of the current site and construction of a new building elsewhere in Danville.
Brydon said it would be impractical to build the facility they need on that site. New plans call for room for more veteran related activities and services.
“You’d need a three-and-a-half story building,” he said. “Would you want a three-and-a-half story building on Hartz Avenue?”
While the cost of renovating the building may be prohibitive, a new facility is not expected to be cheap either. Plans currently call for a 14,400-square-foot single-story building. Hawkins said they do not have solid cost estimates but records show the new Lafayette/Walnut Creek Veterans Hall cost around $600 per square foot. At that rate, such a facility would cost around $8.6 million dollars, not including land costs.
Hawkins said they are unsure what they could get for the property at Hartz and Prospect.
“I’ve had several appraisals done. Some as low as $1.5 million and some as high as $5 million,” he said.
Complicating the situation is the fact that the Legion and VFW don’t have title to the property. Under legislation passed in 1989, the Posts act as trustees of the land, but title is held by Contra Costa County. Thus, any sale of the property would have to be approved by the county and any land purchased would still be held by the county.
Add to all that the contingent in town who would like to see the building on Hartz Avenue preserved for its historic value. Beverly Lane, curator of the Museum of San Ramon Valley, went before the Town Council at a recent meeting asking them to work to spare the site.
“Danville has made some extraordinary efforts to preserve the downtown, particularly the public buildings,” said Lane. “I know the veterans groups see this beautiful building (in Lafayette) but if you look, you see neither of them (Walnut Creek or Lafayette) has a historic downtown.”
She added, “Pleasanton is analogous to Danville, and they are renovating their Veterans Hall.”
Committee members are expected to begin seeking state and federal assistance in the next few weeks. Hawkins said they are amassing funding packets and plan to send them to government agencies to begin the process of seeking grants for the project. Brydon added that a fund is being set up which will allow local residents and businesses to donate as well.
Whether they are able to preserve the bricks and mortar of their current location, the members of the veterans groups are looking forward to preserving that feeling of community by keeping up with their traditions and events, regardless of the street address of their Veterans Hall.
