Stadium High School is a Tacoma, Washington icon.
Often referred to as The Brown Castle, the registered National Historic Landmark was originally intended to be a luxury hotel. Those plans were abandoned after the railroad company financing it went bankrupt, and the building opened as a school in 1906.
According to the Tacoma School District, the school has hosted to historical figures including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Warren Harding, Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, World War I General John “Black Jack” Pershing, and John Phillip Sousa’s band.
The 1999 movie “10 Things I Hate About You” was also filmed at Stadium High.
“It’s a very visual building. You drive into Tacoma and it sits up on this hill overlooking the water,” said Cole Cabler, Director of Industry Development and Technical Services for the International Masonry Institute (IMI).
Last year, IMI and members of BAC Local 1 Washington and Alaska played an important role in Stadium High’s ongoing restoration.
Cabler got involved in the project through the Northwest chapter of the Association for Preservation Technology International, where he met project architect Brian Rich and connected him with information on IMI’s Historic Masonry Preservation Certificate Program (HMPC).
Restoration of the building mainly involved making sure the brickwork’s appearance was identical to how it looked when it first opened, plus repairs to terra cotta and to the paving in the courtyard.
The end result may not look flashy, but it nonetheless requires specialized training to guarantee its authenticity, Cabler said.
Cue HMPC. With the certificate included in the project specifications, IMI and IMTEF hosted a special class for the BAC craftworkers who would be working on Stadium High to prepare them for the intricacies of the job.
“I’m proud that we were able to support this project so quickly,” said Casey Weisdock, IMI Director of Industry Development and Technical Services, and one of the instructors for HMPC. “I was inspired by the passion of the craftworkers who attended. They were excited about going to the project and have a love for historic buildings.”
She added she’s always proud of how the IMI team can come together so quickly and get the craftworkers the training they need.
Lee West, a member of BAC Local 1, is a bricklayer by trade. As someone who’s done mainly new construction, he wanted to add restoration work to his skill set and work on structures that were built long before he was born, like Stadium High.
Taking the HMPC class “was like going to a history class,” he said, adding it was especially helpful to learn more about patching because it’s not something he usually does as a bricklayer.
Rob Miller, Local 1 member and foreman on the job, said the project attracted crowds of “10 Things I Hate About You” fans, including some who traveled all the way from New York to see the school while the work was going on.
“That part was a lot of fun,” he said.
He said the HMPC class was a wealth of information for the craftworkers.
“If it had not been for that class, I would not have been prepared,” Miller said. “The stone repair and color matching was phenomenal, and those were two things we used a lot out there.”
Working on Stadium High had its challenges.
West said bringing the materials to the building was difficult because a public pool sits beneath the open walkway into the building, requiring workers to use a gin wheel and pull materials up by rope. The crew also couldn’t use any chemicals to treat the 19th century bricks, which are no longer made and cannot be replaced. Craftworkers hot washed them with a pressure washer instead.
Nor could they use a grinder to cut the bricks, working instead with an oscillating tool.
Stadium High also sits on Puget Sound, so workers had to capture all water before it went down the drains through filters, Miller said.
Miller said the local community was thrilled with the work, and Local 1 members received gift packages full of memorabilia from the school, including stickers and postcards, from the Stadium High athletic boosters.
“It was very rewarding,” he said.
