LUCERNE, Calif. – On Friday, the building at the center of the community of Lucerne officially became a college campus.
During a brief ceremony featuring county and university officials, campus Executive Director Michelle Scully received the antique keys – on an original keyring used from the days when the building was a hotel – from County Administrative Officer Matt Perry.
The county purchased the building and its accompanying seven acres in 2010 for $1.35 million from a church group that had owned it for many years. Another parcel also was purchased for $150,000.
Eric Seely, the county’s deputy administrative officer for special projects, has overseen the renovation. He told Lake County News that the purchase and county’s renovations total $5 million, with Marymount putting additional funds into preparing the facilities for students.
Scully called the process of turning the building into a four-year university campus “a long walk of faith and vision,” and a big day not just for the Lucerne community but Lake County as a whole.
“It’s been such a testament to this county and the heart of this county,” she said of the effort.
Scully hopes for the new “Lakeside Campus” to become a vibrant community hub of education and opportunity.
“Your vision has been extraordinary,” she told Perry as well as members of the Lake County Advisory Committee that had supported the building’s revisioning process.
Advisory committee members including community leader Wilda Shock, Lake Family Resource Executive Director Gloria Flaherty and Lake County Superintendent of Schools Wally Holbrook looked on during the key handoff.
Perry said he was pleased to be able to hand off the keys to the university, which has a 15-year lease for the building.
He acknowledged the support of the Board of Supervisors, Marymount President Dr. Michael Brophy and retired County Administrative Officer Kelly Cox.
“It’s been a great project,” said Perry.
A history major, Perry said he had always dreamed of being a part of renovating a historic building. Though he joked that the challenges sometimes resembled a nightmare, in the end it was “a dream come true.”
Perry said that one of the best ways to improve a community is to increase the available educational opportunities.
“We believe this will truly transform Lucerne,” he said.
For the county as a whole, however, Perry called it a historic occasion, pointing out that the building will now house the first four-year university to call Lake County home.
County residents will no longer have to travel or move away to pursue bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Perry said.
Cox was a major force behind the county purchasing, saving and preparing the building for its latest – and best – purpose.
He was out of the county on Friday so he couldn’t attend, but in an email message to Lake County News Cox expressed his delight with the opening of the Lucerne Hotel’s latest chapter.
“No one is happier than me about today's milestone!” he wrote. “It truly is a dream come true and will benefit current and future generations of Lake County residents. I have no doubt that Marymount will become a very important part of our community.”
An extensive process
Seely said the county’s part of the extensive building renovations – which has included a new roof, stucco repairs, a new paint job, awnings, new windows, new bathrooms and classrooms, repairs to the electrical system, landscaping, turning the swimming pool into a planter and a new elevator – are now complete.
When the county purchased the 75,000-square-foot building, there were many repairs to be made, he said.
A leaking roof resulted in the building’s north wing taking substantial water, which damaged the interior plaster, Seely said.
However, the building’s wood frame, stucco exterior, and interior lath and plaster were resilient enough that the county was able to move forward on renovations that ultimately saved the structure.
Seely said there were no particular surprises during the project, although there were little discoveries that echoed the building’s colorful past.
Those included finding a Gordon’s gin bottle stuffed into the wall of one of the building’s many original bathrooms. The bottle’s glass color indicated that it was produced in Great Britain not the United States – which at the time was under Prohibition – giving a glimpse into the alcohol smuggling trade.
They also found another alcohol bottle stuck under a stairwell, where it had remained since 1936, after Prohibition was over. Seely guessed it was left there by one of the men working on installing the building’s many sprinklers.
He said they also found Prince Albert tobacco cans. Besides the booze and cigarettes, they didn’t find any money or newspapers, such as he’s found during other renovations projects he’s overseen, like the Ely Stage Stop in Kelseyville.
The most expensive single aspect of the building’s upgrade, according to Seely, was the $400,000 elevator, needed to make it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Originally the county had received a bid for $850,000, but the county worked with an architect to design the project and put it back out to bid for construction, which Seely said led to three new bids. From those the county chose winning bidder.
Seely said the Lucerne Hotel is the largest renovation project he’s managed based on price tag, not far ahead of the $3.5 million new Middletown Library and senior center.
He said there will be future renovations on the Lucerne Hotel – anticipated to include residential housing, an upgrade of the building’s spacious kitchen and additional electrical upgrades – but those will be up to Marymount to complete.
The university so far has made significant upgrades by creating a high-tech, fiber optic infrastructure in the building, as well as furnishing it, he said.
Any time during the 15-year lease – which was signed in October 2012 – Marymount can exercise its option to purchase the building outright. Seely said there are incentives for the university to purchase the building earlier in the lease’s lifetime.
The campus’ first semester of classes will begin this fall, with the first day of college being Monday, Aug. 25.
Campus enrollment currently is at about 30 for bachelor’s and master’s degree students, with at least 10 county employees planning to take professional development classes at the campus, said Sharon Maher, the Lakeside Campus enrollment coordinator.
Putting those numbers in perspective, the university’s chief academic officer, Dr. Ariane Schauer, said that when Marymount started its bachelor’s program four year ago, it had 40 students across its two Southern California campuses in Rancho Palos Verdes and San Pedro.
Today, 60 percent of the 1,000 students who attend Marymount’s campuses are seeking their bachelor’s degrees, Schauer said.
Maher said all of the students enrolled for the fall semester are local, with many of them choosing to attend Marymount rather than schools like Sonoma State or Sacramento State.
She said many of those students also are transferring either from Mendocino College or Yuba College, which was made possible thanks to transfer agreements that Marymount established with those two local community colleges.
“That partnership” – with the community colleges – “is key,” Schauer noted.
Schauer also explained that one of the university’s educational emphases at the Lakeside Campus will be training entrepreneurs to build their own businesses and, in the process, to improve their community.
After she took the keys from Perry on Friday afternoon, Scully looked up at the hotel’s seven story tower – which makes it Lake County’s tallest building – and pointed out that in the 1920s someone had the wherewithal to build such an impressive structure.
“It’s been waiting a long time to have its moment, and I think it’s here,” she said.
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