Mt. Hood Pavilion   

Built in 1961, The Mt. Hood Pavilion is a year round meeting and event facility conveniently located between Canby Grove’s two lodges (The Riverfront Lodge and the Plaza Lodge) and adjacent to the River Walk Cabins and campfire area. The octagonal shaped building is 76 feet in diameter, with large arch roof supports and seats up to 450 people.  The facility is equipped with a large west facing stage, two 60’ mounted television screens a complete sound system with an elevated mixing board station and a large wood burning fireplace.

The Challenge

The Mt. Hood Pavilion, although architecturally beautiful and easily adaptable for many uses has no bathroom facilities. This means that guests using the building must use the facilities located in the adjacent Riverfront Lodge or those located on east campground adjacent to the Plaza Dining Hall.

The Plan

Our vision is to add men’s and women’s bathrooms to the Pavilion, connected to the meeting room by an interior hallway constructed on the northwestern exterior side of the building. Building design for the project as well as feasibility study and architectural plans will be executed by award winning architect Keith Hoelscher who has experience in camp and conference center design, having worked on the CYO/Camp Howard Master Building and Renovation Plan. Once the plans are completed and funding raised, the construction is estimated to take six weeks.

The Plaza Lodge

Originally built in the 1940s, the historical Plaza Lodge guest rooms, meeting rooms, kitchen and Dining Hall have seen a number of renovations over the years. In 1958, the Plaza was “winterized.” A cordwood-size fireplace was built in the Dining Hall, heating was added and exterior stairs were installed at each end of the building.  The 1960’s saw the addition of the Fireside Room (a comfortable lounge and meeting area with a large fireplace) and the Evergreen Room (a multi-purpose room often used for additional or private dining space). With 26 guest rooms and three full community bathrooms, the Plaza offers guest easy year round access to the downstairs facility without having to leave the building.

The Challenge

While the Plaza’s kitchen, Dining Hall, 12 west wing, and 14 east wing guest rooms and bathrooms have benefited from renovation over the last three years (excluding guest room furniture and accessories), the Fireside Meeting Room has not seen any meaningful renovation since the 1960s.

Fireside Room renovation calls for wall-to-ceiling treatments, new carpeting, and new furnishings. This room is an important component in our meeting room lineup as it not only offers a cozy environment for small to medium sized groups but provides easy interior access to the Dining Hall, Evergreen Room and upstairs guest rooms. Finally, our renovation plan calls for tearing out the wall between our main Dining Hall and our extension dining facility, the Evergreen Room, replacing it with a sliding barn door which would give us the option of expanding the size of the main Dinning Hall for large groups while maintaining the ability to close the door for the separation of smaller groups.

The Plan

Because the desired work on the Plaza Lodge is a renovation project, Canby Grove will contract with several different contractors and designers for each phase of the remodel, including:

• New floors, doors, trim, molding and painting in the Fireside Room

• Guest room furniture and accessories

• Barn door for the Evergreen Room

Contractors will be selected based on skill, reputation and price.

Cabin Replacement

The first eleven guest cabins were constructed on the Canby Grove site in 1956. They were of wood frame construction and could accommodate between four and eight campers depending on the cabin’s bed configuration. There were no bathrooms in the cabins but each cabin had three windows to let the sunlight in and an elevated front deck to relax on. Ten more cabins of similar construction were added in 1957 and ten more in 1958. A series of newer cabins were constructed in the 1990s. They were in addition to and not replacements for the original cabins of the 1950s.

The Challenge

Over the course of many faithful years of use, the oldest cabins on the grounds began to show their age. Repairs were made as needed but over time it became more costly to maintain these cabins.  Finally, in the 1990s many were closed to guests and used for storage or just retired altogether. Twenty-five of these cabins are now un-rentable.

The Plan

Canby Grove desires to tear down these old cabins and replace them with new cabins equipped with bathrooms that can be used year round. Doing so would allow us to accommodate an additional 150+ guests at any given time. With the popularity of “Tiny Houses” growing, there are a number of affordable pre-built options to choose from. Phase I calls for the replacement of 12 cabins in our Woodland “A” section with 12 bunkhouses. This will enable us to expand our housing facilities for our year round guests as well as our visiting Outdoor School camps.

New Indoor Recreational Center

Having been built in the beginning as a summer camp and retreat center, Canby Grove never contemplated an indoor recreational facility in its original design nor in its early expansion plans.  With the completion of the Mt. Hood Pavilion in 1960 the facility opened its doors to year round events but was limited in its overnight capacity to the 26 guest rooms in the Plaza Lodge. With the construction of the Riverfront Lodge in the early 1990s, and the addition of 37 lodge style rooms, each with full bath, Canby Grove was finally positioned to expand into a year round conference and retreat center. Now in 2021, equipped with outstanding guest accommodations and meeting facilities, Canby Grove is looking to construct an indoor Recreation Center/Gymnasium on the east side of its property; an amenity very much sought after by off-season guests in the rainy Pacific Northwest.

The Challenge

In the early 2000s, the Alliance Church had a vision to build an indoor gym, but plans were never finalized and the property was sold to its current owners in 2012.  With other conference centers in western Oregon offering indoor recreational facilities, and many guest groups insisting on this amenity, the time is now for Canby Grove to build its own Recreation Center/Gymnasium. In determining what to build, our research has shown us that several features appear to be universally popular. They include:

• 1 full size basketball court

• 4 volleyball courts

• Men’s and women’s dressing rooms and showers

• Indoor sports equipment

• Spectator seating

• Recreation room with pool tables, foosball and ping pong tables

• Meeting/Lounge facility with observation deck

• The ability to divide the gym into two or more sections (via curtain)

• Coin-operated laundry facilities

• Indoor lodging for 12 bunkbeds with a bathroom in each bunk room.

The Plan

Like the Mt. Hood Pavilion project, building design for this project as well as feasibility study and architectural plans will be executed by award winning architect Keith Hoelscher who has experience in camp and conference center design having worked on the CYO/Camp Howard.  Once plans have been finalized and funding raised, construction will take approximately twelve weeks to complete.