Napa Valley Register: Building Brannan Center
Art Abound: Former Calistoga church to become performing arts center
Aug 28, 2024
CALISTOGA — My very first trek to Calistoga was not to take in the atmosphere or sample the delicious food — although that came later — but to tour a performing arts and community center in the making.
This assignment was the perfect mix of two of my favorite things in my decade as a journalist – coverage of the local performing arts scene (often in the form of crashing dress rehearsals for local plays) and tours of new construction. If you have ever been to the Yolo County courthouse in Woodland or the PG&E Gas Safety Academy in Winters, I had several visits during the construction of those and other projects. I am excited to start making these kinds of memories in the Napa Valley.
Therefore, when an email came in from a representative of the Brannan Center asking if I wanted to tour the building during its construction, I jumped at the chance.
Unfortunately, with the Brannan Center I missed the window for my traditional hard-hat selfie — over the years I’ve sent many of these to my longtime construction worker dad — but it was a good visit nonetheless.
The Brannan Center is a Calistoga nonprofit organization seeking to revitalize a former Presbyterian church — known among locals as the "Green Church” for its striking teal color — and turn it into a performing arts and community space.
On a recent Sunday, I took the Silverado Trail to Calistoga to meet with the Brannan Center's executive director Kyle Clausen, architect Timothy Wilkes and board chair Edward Kozel to get a sense of how the project is going. The trio explained the significant role the church – located at 1407 Third St. with such neighbors as a monastery and elementary school – had played in the Calistoga community.
“This structure is one of the oldest buildings in Calistoga,” Clausen said, noting the building turned 150 years old this year. When the building was red-tagged due to a major water leak and the congregation was later disbanded — its members “aged out,” according to Clausen — the closure did not just affect local churchgoers but the community as a whole. That was because the Green Church was used by a variety of community groups and essentially doubled as the city’s community center, Wilkes added.
“They all came through the Green Church,” Clausen said, referring to groups such as the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Alcoholics Anonymous and others. A shuttered church meant those groups needed to be relocated, which has been a challenge. “The groups had nowhere to go.”
Enter the Brannan Center.
Founded in 2020, the group of Calistogans behind the center embarked “on an ambitious restoration and expansion of the historic property,” according to the nonprofit’s website. Named after Calistoga town founder Samuel Brannan, the center, once it opens, will serve the entire community.
Asked how the neighbors feel about the center, Clausen emphasized an outpouring of support, not just from residents on Washington and Berry streets but across the city. Wilkes noted that as the project made its way through the city planning commission process, dozens of community members sent letters in favor of the project.
The Brannan Center broke ground in March 2023 and is on track to open in the fall of 2025. The total cost of the adaptive reuse and expansion of the building is $11 million, Clausen later explained via email.
“The project has been privately funded, primarily by individuals, but with notable support from the Rotary Club of Calistoga and the Calistoga Presbyterian Church,” he stated. “We are also very focused on fiscal sustainability and ensuring that Brannan Center is a vital community resource for many years to come, so to that end we are raising an additional $1.5 million to pre-fund the first two years of operations while we take time to develop ongoing revenue streams. Overall, our fundraising goal is $12.5 million, and we are approximately 85% to that goal.”
Stepping into the former church, which transitioned from a teal green to a more muted olive shade, we first entered the original church structure. The first room we entered was a performance space updated to suit those needs, but the towering Gothic windows remained, a reminder of the building’s past.
Wilkes noted that although he’s had a lengthy career as an architect, including 35 years in the Calistoga area, this was his first time working on a performing arts space. The Main Performance Hall, which encompasses the original building, needed to be remodeled so it can accommodate a climate-control system to properly cool the space while the hot stage lights are active. The hall also needed audio-visual and broadcast capabilities. Wilkes also needed to consider the acoustic nature of the space. The longtime architect did extensive research to make the space performance-ready.
The historic building will soon have “state-of-the-art infrastructure” to serve this need, Wilkes said.
An alcove on one side of the room is just big enough to fit a grand piano.
While the performing arts aspect of the center is certainly at the forefront, the word that came up the most during the tour was “flexibility.” The center needs to be versatile in the kinds of events and gatherings it can host. That aspect has been imperative throughout the planning process.
And the Green Church has the “good bones” to accomplish that.
"The fully restored structure will utilize all of the existing 9,287 square feet of the original three-story building as well as an additional 1,492 square feet of new construction," Aime Dunstan, who serves on the center's board of directors as the public relations and marketing committee chair, explained via email. "When complete, Brannan Center will be a contemporary, multipurpose building with two primary performance halls totaling nearly 4,000 square feet with a single performance capacity of 180 people."
For more information on the Brannan Center, visit buildbrannancenter.org.