By Lisa Butterworth | Special to the Courier

In a city full of notable buildings, one catches the eye of everyone who passes: the big brown house nestled just north of the Village at 343 W. 12th Street. It’s not a residence, but it is home to the Woman’s Club of Claremont, and this year marks the building’s 100^th anniversary as the local nonprofit’s clubhouse.

The club itself was formed in 1919 when a handful of women who had been getting together during World War I to sew and knit for the Red Cross decided to continue meeting, formalizing their group. But their numbers quickly grew larger than any member’s home could accommodate. “They ended up with a hundred members—apparently, it was a really fun sewing circle,” said Rebecca Raney, a Woman’s Club of Claremont board member. “So they started shopping around for a building.”

The building they found had been constructed for a nursery in 1908, and was used as a warehouse until the nursery closed — the empty building was referred to simply as “the barn.” The club members raised $1,500 to purchase the barn in March 1925, then borrowed $12,000 from the First National Bank of Claremont to finance its remodeling.

(L-R) Woman’s Club of Claremont board members Catherine Caporale and Rebecca Raney. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

The work done by local architect Jonathan Ring and local contractor O.P. Spiers, completed in November 1925, can still be appreciated today. The building, with its large ballroom, ample basement and kitchen, and cozy upstairs room, hasn’t changed much, aside from general upkeep and maintenance. “We want to keep the character,” Raney said. “Nobody’s going to come in here and put in gray walls and steel—not on our watch.”

The vintage aesthetic is part of the clubhouse’s charm, but it also evokes the spirit of the place. “I love walking through here,” Raney said of the ballroom, “because you can just sense all of the events through the decades that were here. And there were many, many events.” In the club’s early days these included dances, card parties, concerts, and bazaars. The 1950s and ‘60s saw a Monte Carlo night and a fundraiser that auctioned the hats of Hollywood icons — donated by the likes of Janet Leigh, Mrs. Danny Kaye, and Mrs. Dean Martin.

And, of course, there are the luncheons. To further its philanthropic mission, the Clubhouse has hosted thousands of them, and they continue to be the Woman’s Club of Claremont’s main events. “It’s wonderful to be able to have our lunches there and consider all the past women that have gone before, a hundred years of meetings at the clubhouse,” said Catherine Caporale, a former president and current member.

The monthly luncheons, which are also open to non-members, feature a speaker from a local nonprofit, which receives a donation from the club. “We try to bring in a cross-section of the community,” Raney said. Past events have featured speakers from the Southland and La Verne Symphony Orchestras, Inland Valley Hope Partners, and Uncommon Good, among many others. The effects of the events “snowball, in a really wonderful way,” said Caporale, with members discovering other organizations they often support and volunteer with.

The luncheons also offer local women an opportunity for community that is becoming all too rare. “This is a place to sit down and talk to people. I think that’s a big bonus right now because we’re all so siloed in our electronic worlds. You come here and you will meet people who, sure, they’re kicking around Claremont, but you’re probably not going to meet them anywhere else,” Raney said. “And everyone who comes has an interesting story to tell. You never know who’s going to be sitting across the table from you.”

The clubhouse has been the hearth and heart of the Woman’s Club of Claremont, and members have worked hard to keep it that way. Just a couple of years after purchasing the building, with the Great Depression looming, membership dropped along with the club’s coffers. But a movie filming on location in Claremont saved the day. Some industrious members had heard “Fair Coed,” starring Marion Davies, was shooting at Pomona College and got hired on as extras, using their earnings to pay the clubhouse’s mortgage.

The historic Woman’s Club of Claremont clubhouse at 343 W. 12th St. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

In the decades that followed, efforts were made to pay off the loan by the club’s 25th anniversary. On May 10, 1944, after the balance was paid, the members celebrated with a dinner that culminated in burning the mortgage paper.

The pandemic presented a more recent challenge. “I would say it was equivalent to what they faced in the ‘20s, but nobody was offering us hundreds of dollars to play extras in somebody’s movie,” Raney said.

The clubhouse is where the women gather, and it also generates funds as a location rental. “This building, when I say it was an engine for community building and for fundraising, that’s exactly what it is,” Raney said. “When the events dropped off, our income dropped off.”

In addition, many of the club’s board members had left the Claremont area, and it looked like the organization may have seen its final days. But a handful of dedicated members decided not to let that happen. “The point was made that we have to guide this the right way, and we need people who can commit to this and say, ‘We’re going to keep this thing going,’” Raney said. “And we did.”

When the world opened up again, rentals began to pick up, and the clubhouse became a space for all kinds of events, from baby showers and sweet 16 parties to weddings and memorial services. A church meets there on Sundays and there’s even a group that does yoga in the clubhouse.

The Woman’s Club of Claremont’s clubhouse at 343 W. 12th St. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

Club membership took a bit longer to regenerate. The new board members continued gathering for their monthly lunches, then each member started bringing a friend, hoping they’d have enough guests to cover the catering bill. “And after a couple of years of keeping it going, suddenly we saw more people and more people and more people,” Raney said.

It’s a legacy Raney is proud to uphold.

“It’s been a long line of extraordinary women who did extraordinary things reflected by the circumstances of their times each decade,” she said.

The club is now 66 members strong, and all are welcome. “Fun, friendship, and philanthropy is our motto, and that really encapsulates what we do,” said Caporale. “We forge friendships, we have a great time, and then we give back to the community.”

The clubhouse provides the space for all of this to happen, and stewarding the building is a responsibility the women do not take lightly.

“It’s a privilege and an honor,” Caporale said, “because you are holding a wonderful historic building for future generations as the women before us have done.”