Occidental Center for the Arts: A School Site Finds a New Public Voice

By Matthew Martinez, Founder, CEO & Managing Broker, Diamond Real Estate Group. California DRE #01869679.

An old school site holds memories of learning, performance and gathering. In Occidental, part of the former Harmony School acquired a new public role through the creation of a community arts center.

The story combines adaptive use with a considerable volunteer effort. It shows how an existing room can become a cultural resource when people organize around the activities they want it to support.

The organization began with a search for a home

The Center’s own history dates its founding to 1998, when Doris Murphy and Kit Neustadter sought a venue for local performing and visual arts.

In 2003, developers of Harmony Village agreed to donate a classroom and multipurpose room from the closed school site. An architect and acoustician developed plans for the performance space.

The existing rooms gave the project a physical starting point. The ambitions for their use required more than occupying them unchanged: a performance venue needed suitable sound, sightlines and equipment.

This is an important part of the adaptive-use story. An inherited building can provide a foundation while still needing careful technical work to serve a different public purpose.

Volunteer labor helped bring the project into use

The Center records a fundraising campaign after approval of the Harmony Village map in 2008. During the economic downturn, the effort placed greater emphasis on donated labor.

Its history credits more than 7,000 logged volunteer hours in the work leading to the 2010 opening.

Those hours represent a form of local investment that is less visible than a building’s façade. A community facility can embody the time and skills of people who wanted to create a place for shared activity.

The building therefore preserves two kinds of history: its earlier educational use and the later collective effort that made the arts center possible.

The facility offers several scales of encounter

The current facilities description includes an indoor auditorium, outdoor amphitheater, classroom and gallery. It also records completion of the lobby addition in August 2023.

The combination supports different relationships between audience and activity. A concert, class and exhibition each need a different arrangement, and outdoor performance introduces another relationship with the setting.

The lobby matters within that sequence. Arrival and intermission create opportunities for conversation, making the spaces around a performance part of the experience.

The choir carries a continuing local partnership

The Occidental Community Choir’s history identifies the arts center as its home and recounts the shared effort to establish the venue.

That perspective connects the facility with a group whose activity predates it. The project answered an existing need rather than depending entirely on a future audience.

A stable home can allow a performing organization to develop its work over time, while recurring performances give the building a familiar place in the community calendar.

The gallery makes space for another kind of practice

The gallery program describes locally organized exhibitions with themes ranging from figure drawing to plants and the ocean. Volunteers organize the shows and staff the space.

Its exhibition archive includes quilts, watercolor, student work and mixed-media themes. This range gives visual art a recurring place alongside music and performance.

For someone getting to know Occidental, the Center offers a concrete example of community culture taking physical form. Older rooms remain useful because residents continue giving them new work to do.

The continuing use gives the building’s earlier life a public connection with its present.

Explore real estate and home for sale in Occidental, or contact Diamond to discuss a location that fits your plans.

Sources checked October 28, 2026. Historical details are attributed to the linked primary records and site operators. Check the operator for current visiting arrangements.