A brief history of a beloved building

Connie Williams, library historian at the Sonoma County Library, recently unearthed this gem for us: an article marking the opening of this incredible building.

It describes who spoke, who gave the flowers, what were in the flowers, all kinds of detail. But the main thing is, we have a birth date: April 25 1926. And we find this very humorous because the entablature on the building facade says 1925. But anybody who knows anything about architecture and construction knows that schedules aren’t always realistic.

In any case, the great thing is, we now have the date of the centennial, April 25 2026.

In the meantime, Connie introduced us to Katherine Rinehart, local historian extraordinaire, who helped us track down some pictures. She found a number of archival photographs at the Petaluma Museum and also at the library, which we wanted to share here.

Construction photo: “Future home of Sonoma County National Bank along the Savings Bank” with all the formwork for the concrete

The vault in the basement being built

Bank employees, 1925

Under construction, but further along; with scaffolding inside.
Mullions have been placed, but not the glass.

Below you can finally see the glass in place, as well as blinds. (We were wondering how they keep the sun out of the huge lobby. And sure enough, you can see in the headers above the windows, there are hooks where you would have secured the straps for the Venetian blinds, which are now gone).

Below is a picture on what we believe would have been opening day (based on the flowers). Gorgeous.

This would have been an incredibly loud space, so the somewhere along the way they added acoustic tile. They didn't remove the clock, but they added acoustic tile on the walls in the panels and also on the ceiling, taking out every other rosette. Somewhere along the way we also lost the beautiful light fixtures you can see in the photo above, which are hopefully still out there, somewhere.

The space today, for comparison

In 1928, Bank of America purchased the building to serve as its regional branch until 1968, when it merged with the Petaluma branch in a new building on the northwest side of Washington Street and Petaluma Boulevard. The building then served as a real estate office in the 1970’s and 80’s, a rug and antiques store in the 1990’s and 2000’s, and headquarters of The Seed Bank from 2009 to 2018. It remained vacant until we took on the lease.

We see ourselves as stewards; we’re just tenants with a five-year lease and an option to renew for an additional five years. So in a way (unless some miracle happens, and we’re able to purchase the building), we’re passing through like other people have done before us. In the meantime, though, it represents an extraordinary opportunity for us to do something for this beautiful building and, by extension, for the community.