'Back in business': Woman's Club of Lodi to host grand re-opening of historic clubhouse

Apr. 16—The Woman's Club of Lodi will hold a grand reopening for its clubhouse on Saturday, a little more than a year after the roof collapsed following a flurry of torrential storms.

Saturday's event, which is 1-4 p.m. at 325 W. Pine St., will include a walking tour of the 101-year-old building, refreshments, and a presentation from Lodi Mayor Lisa Craig.

"This is just a reopening, a kind of we're back in business kind of thing," Woman's Club past president Daphne Felde said. "People have been curious about what's going on in here, and plenty of people have never been in the building. So we thought let's just go ahead and have an open house they can wander through."

In March of 2023, part of the clubhouse roof caved in, causing water to fall into a second-story room, blowing a door to the second-story balcony open, and flooding onto Pine Street.

The water also made its way to the building's first floor, causing the walls to crack and stain and leave the foyer carpet sopping wet.

The disaster occurred just four days before the organization's 100th anniversary celebration, and the water damaged raffle items that were to be given away that day.

It was determined that a clogged drain in the building caused the water to back up and collect on the roof, Felde said.

"What we found out was, there was a collapsed drain pipe down in the sidewalk," she said. "That's what stopped it draining all the way out to the street and into public discharge. It just backed up and backed up, starting at a collapsed drain."

That collapsed drain ran down a front corner of the building and underneath sidewalk, ultimately discharging water into the Pine Street gutter.

Crews didn't realize the drain was blocked until several months into the rebuild, Felde said, when water still was not flowing into the street.

Upon further inspection, it was determined the underground pipe had collapsed during its 100-year lifespan.

Felde said the Lodi Fire Department estimated some 17,000 gallons of water had collected on the roof at the time of the collapse.

Diede Construction and Mike Smith Engineering helped redesign and rebuild parts of the building that had been destroyed.

Not only was the roof replaced, but all the asbestos and asbestos-covered pipes were removed from the building, and an old phone booth that has been used as a closet during events was removed in order to make the women's restroom and a unisex bathroom ADA compliant.

"The toilets were up on a platform, about four to five inches, which allowed the sewer line to run between the floors," Felda said. "When we had to install the disabled restroom, the toilet could not be raised. It had to be flush with floor. So we had to re-plumb everything, and ended up with an exposed sewer line down through the basement. So we repainted the basement, painted the sewer line, and it's there but not as obvious"

The ballroom was repainted and its wood floor — which the organization had spent $5,000 to remove sealer and wax just days before the disaster — was also replaced.

Overflow drainage was installed in the upstairs storage room where the water broke through the balcony door, and its floor was refinished.

New plaster in the sitting room adjacent to the foyer was installed in the wall as well.

The entire project cost about $900,000, and took 11 months to complete, Felde said, adding the initial time frame was projected at as much as two years.

The Woman's Club held its first meeting since the disaster on March 8.

During the renovation, the Oddfellows and Masonic Club of Lodi offered their meeting spaces to the Women's Club, as did the Lodi Moose Lodge.

The club's beginnings date back to 1906 — the same year Lodi became an incorporated city with 2,000 residents — when some 28 women gathered at the Methodist Church and formed the Ladies Improvement Club, proclaiming its purpose was to assist Lodi's progress and betterment.

At first, the club met in members' homes. As membership increased, the club began meeting in the Odd Fellows Hall located at Sacramento and Elm streets.

The club used other venues, such as the Davis Hall on Pine Street and the small City Hall building on North Sacramento Street, as well as the Eagles Club hall at the corner of Sacramento and Locust streets as membership continued to grow.

The club changed its name to the Lodi Woman's Club in 1913 and had 65 members. Two years later, the club began a campaign to build its own clubhouse, and raised funds to purchase the 325 W. Pine St. site.

Construction on the clubhouse began in 1922 and was completed in March of 1923, when the organization boasted some 450 members.

Today, the club has 155 members, raise money for scholarships awarded to high school students, and hold annual fundraisers such as the Mexican Fiesta Dinner next week and the Bunco Bonanza in March.

All proceeds are given to local charities and used to maintain the clubhouse.

The clubhouse is also listed on the national and state registries of historic buildings.

Felde said the damage to the clubhouse could have been a lot worse.

"It's with great satisfaction that a year's worth of work turned out as well as it did," she said. "There were a lot of ups and downs at the end of the year, but with a lot of guidance from Diede Construction and the private insurance adjusters we hired, we're very pleased with the building. Hopefully it will last for another 100 years"