Odd Fellows add gym to save home

WALLA WALLA – With a count of one, two, three, four, arms waved and bodies swayed in the basement swimming pool of the Odd Fellows Temple.

For the 11 or so ladies submerged waist-deep, swishing and pirouetting on command, it was all about a well-rounded workout.

For the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the water aerobics class means a great deal more.

Thomas East, director of the Enterprise Fitness Complex, said people using the exercise facility on the building’s bottom floor could mean new life for the building above it.

With a remodel weighing in at $220,000 and compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, the fraternal organization opened its doors to nonmembers in July via the new fitness complex.

East, who has contracted to manage the business for Odd Fellows, would not reveal the number of charter members of the gym, saying the Odd Fellows board of trustees has asked him not to.

The gym includes cardiovascular equipment, free weights, sauna, whirlpool bath and a “very nice pool,” East said.

While there are no employees or lifeguards the gym is open seven days a week, from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., 365 days a year. “Very unencumbered hours,” the director said with a smile.

Around-the-clock fitness is a future possibility to accommodate shift workers, but no one has asked for it to date, he added.

Members are issued a key card for the ground-level entry door; fees range from $110 per quarter, or $395 for a year’s membership. Rates are also available for couples.

A camera surveillance system allows East to watch five gym areas at any one time on his desktop computer, he said.

Enterprise Fitness opens options for people who can’t fit into the hours and class schedules of the better-known workout spots, he feels.

While the gym is in place to help fill the needs of the community, the Odd Fellows organization hopes it’s also a means to an end.

“It’s like the Humane Society runs a thrift store. This is like a retail business owned by the Odd Fellows,” East said of the venture.

The brick building has been part of the Walla Walla landscape since being built as the original YMCA in 1906. The fraternal Odd Fellows organization, which has had a presence in the Valley since 1863, bought the structure in 1979.

The building was designed by German immigrant Henry Osterman, who, according to East, was a construction laborer one day and an architect the next, simply by changing his shingle. Its eccentric design features many stairways and half-floors of questionable function, he said.

East sees the Odd Fellows building as much like the fabled Winchester House in San Jose, filled with stairs that go nowhere and nonsensical turns and twists. As an architect, Osterman “was really freaky,” he said.

East said overcoming the building’s quirky design will be a challenge. “It would be almost insane to put in an elevator, because elevators don’t stop every two feet.”

But the Odd Fellows are determined to try, he said. When the organization decided to remodel three years ago, members realized it would fall upon their financial shoulders. No government grants for historic restoration fit with this situation, East said.

“It’s not the right tax bracket,” he said. “It has all the right stuff and none of the right money.”

Change is taking place all over Walla Walla and the surrounding neighborhood is no exception, he noted. “This was slated to become an art district. I thought ‘if that takes hold, this is a wonderful building to restore.’”

Restoration would also include making things easier for lodge patrons, including female members called Rebekahs, many of whom are in their 70s, the director said. The work eventually might mean the aforementioned elevator, after all.

That will cost $150,000, he estimates. But with an elevator, options for the building could increase. “I would turn the top floor into art lofts,” East said. “Art lofts are very popular in San Diego and San Francisco. Artists can wake and start painting or whatever it is artists do.”