How did Claar House get its name? The journey there had its ups and downs.

Before the great fire of 1960 ravaged The Community of the Great Commission, there were the planners, those people who had spent hours, days, months and years walking over acres and acres of land, visiting camp areas up and down the western parts of California, and inland at various locations where  a camp facility could be built.

During that era, the camps were held in various places. Lake Alpine being one location, Camp Millwood on Lake Sequoia another and camp locations on the coast of California.  This small group of people were determined to locate the property where a “church camp” would flourish.

The search was on! 

Abe Allen, a man who was active in early church summer camps for over 25 years, writes in “The History of the Community of the Great Commission,” tells us how difficult the search was. “We had just two problems–finding a suitable location and raising funds. The first was formidable enough.  Most of our church people had little conception of the size, location, necessary features and cost of suitable property. Good prospects were scarce. Regional staff member Ben Bobbitt was the Regional Minister at the time and committee members, individually and in small groups, ran down numerous leads.”

John Holland, later to become the first manager of The Community of the Great Commission, describes his early involvement: “By the time I came upon the scene, quite late in the history of the cycle, I came to a conference at Camp Millwood on Sequoia, one of the YMCA camps near the King’s Canyon entrance, and met a few people from the Christian Churches: Dean Echols, in particular, Karl Irvin was there.  I think, and it was there that I personally fell in love with California.”

Fast forward as he continues the story.  John Holland and a small group looked at a potential site outside of Foresthill, CA.  Over a small period of time, the deal to purchase this property fell through.  At that time, the Conference Center Commission was now in the process of searching for a site.  They explored Michigan Bluff because there was some talk of the old Daniel Webster Mine possibly being up for sale.  It had been an old mine that had been active up to about 1955 or 1956. They went and looked at that mine and found it had the old miner’s shack, and a roadway in which they’d truck out the rock to the smelter and a tunnel.

This group of people were fascinated with the little town of Michigan Bluff.  It had the old Wells Fargo building and the rather lovely old house and the distant views off that bluff overlooking the middle fork of the ricer of the American Canyon, which was spectacular.

They continued on checking the ridge up to where the future Group House was built.  They used the old Chicken Hawk Road, located about fifty feet away from the group house, and found it to be very deeply rutted from wagon and truck traffic for over one hundred years.

They were told that they didn’t think this old McCarthy place was for sale anymore but it had been listed a year before for about $1,000 an acre and there was about a thousand acres in it.

In John Holland’s words, this caught his attention: “Josh Wilson and I caught our breath.  We’d been told not to go over $50,000 looking for property and between 100 and 150 acres – enough acreage so that we have the kind of privacy that most of us like to have when we’re having camp programs – not much other traffic and people going through. Let’s just check it out – maybe you can sell off part of it.”

This story now has a turn of luck.  As the realtor continued to tell them that the land wasn’t moving that fast, that he couldn’t sell it and didn’t know whether it could be sold.

“About that time, though, we noticed a man driving up in his pickup by the name of Ernie Francis of Francis and Sons Logging Company.  He told us that he had been logging the property at the time, and told us about some nice property by Baker Ranch, some property that went clear down to Volcano Canyon and back the other side.  They had already surveyed the land. 

“We found out that K.R. Nutting, a lettuce grower in Salinas Valley, had been using the property and he thought he might be willing to sell it to us.  We put together a salable package that we thought the churches (Disciples of Christ) would accept.  The total deal was (approximately) $15,000 down with $800 a month in payments.

“Norris Gaddos, an architect, drew up a master plan of the property.  We  took that, plus an impressive display of photographs and posters by Mahlon Picht of Sacramento, to the Annual Meeting in Chico in 1959.  We made a proposition to the finance committee and to the churches, and the churches bought the plan.”

“On August 25, 1959, the escrow closed with a twenty-year clause on the mineral rights.  K.R. Nutting found us an optional way to purchase the property that the Christian Churches could manage to afford.”

A Special “Match This Gift” from Adelaide Claar

In the 1960’s, John Holland provided each issue of The Letters to the Ministry, a publication by CCNC-N, with an article about the Community of the Great Commission.  In these very informative articles, he writes about when various buildings and structures were built, the successful tree plantings and several noteworthy events in the early history of CGC.

In the February 1963 issue The Letters to the Ministry, he talks about the building of the “Group House.”

“The big news is the construction of the first Group House.  It will be our first permanent ‘year-round’ use building.  Bill Plambeck and Ken Hanson, two contractors in the east Bay area, Norris Gaddos, our architect and myself consulted several hours concerning the design, the materials and the work layout and have set up a building schedule.”

“The house is being built with designated funds, a ‘Match-This’ gift of $13,000 has spurred this unit into reality.  If you can give toward this special building fund, send it to Harry Martin, Christian Churches state office, designated ‘For the Group House.  The gift of $13,000 was from Adelaide Claar of the First Christian Church of San Jose Church.  It was originally designed to be a lay training center

“This structure will make possible, beginning August 1, resident programs for as many as 25-30 persons.  Through efforts of many interested men in the churches and our youth work camp this summer, I feel confident this will be completed.”

In May 1994, renovations were done to Claar House.  Intended plans included:  1) enclosing the atrium for dining, 2) adding a new roof over the kitchen, atrium and bedrooms, 3) removing the dividing glass doors to enlarge the dining area, 4) installing a skylight in the roof, 5) improvements to the kitchen and serving area, and 6) Increase handicap accessibility.

Concluding this period of the history of CGC was the kind donation of $13,000 from Adelaide Claar that not only gave the ‘group house’ a distinguished name but it spurred hundreds of people in the CCNC-N region to continue to donate to the place still called “The Community of the Great Commission.”

By Guest Contributor David Babayco