It’s never easy to find a new home, but members of the Masons fraternal organization in Clark County have it worse than most as they prepare to move out of a building that’s been their home for decades.
The Masons are selling their Masonic Center, at 2500 N.E. 78th St., and are searching for a new home for the many gatherings and activities of four Masonic lodges and other organizations. Their decision to sell was triggered by the devastating discovery that the former Vancouver Masonic Temple’s board treasurer had stolen nearly $800,000 from them over a six-year period.
“It’s an expensive building to keep going,” said Dean Roettger, president of Vancouver Masonic Temple Inc. “Hopefully, we’ll do something on a smaller scale.”
The Masons recently accepted a conditional offer on the building and, if all goes well in a building feasibility study, the deal could close by the end of December, said Gene Thompson of Equity NW Properties, the designated broker on the sale.
The conditional offer and two others submitted for the property are below the $1.9 million asking price, Thompson said. The Masonic Center is a 20,000 square foot building on a 2.4 acre site zoned for commercial use, and the prospective buyer would use the property for commercial activity, he said.
While it’s a difficult time for the county’s Masonic organizations, Roettger says members are looking forward to a fresh start.
“We’re in a real bad spot, but as Masons we look at it as, “OK, it happened. What can we do about it and make it a positive?’ The way we look at it, good prevails,” he said.
In September, former mortgage adviser Jesten Jay Galland III, 47, was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzling nearly $800,000 from the temple. Galland had been elected as treasurer of the Vancouver Masonic Temple’s board of trustees in 2006. The money was intended for maintenance, including insurance and taxes, of the Vancouver Masonic Center.
The Masonic organizations are looking county-wide for property to build a new, smaller center, Roettger said. Although most members live in east Clark County, the organization is leaning toward a location closer to its original home in downtown Vancouver, he said. “We’ve been looking everywhere from downtown to halfway between downtown and east side,” he said.
Indeed, history is important to the Masonic organizations. Their current building, constructed in 1969, contains doors preserved from the first Masonic Lodge that opened in 1865. The building also has doorknobs and a light fixture from the late 1800s, among other mementos of the club’s past. Roettger is optimistic that the building purchaser will allow the Masons to take some of those fixtures for their new building.
The temple is home to four Masonic lodges — Washington Lodge No. 4; Mount Hood Lodge No. 32; Ridgefield Daylight No. 237; and Vancouver No. 47, Prince Hall Mason. While Roettger said the Masons would have been happy to stay in their present building indefinitely, they’re now looking forward rather than dwelling on the past.
“The anger has gone away,” he said. “It’s more acceptance at this point. It’s time to move forward and build something again.”
