Every structure has a creation story – a tale of the hands that built it and the forces that compelled them. In Masonry, the most famous is Solomon’s Temple. More than 150,000 Masons worked for seven years building a temple for the glory of God.

The brothers at Siminoff Daylight Lodge No. 850 know something of this. So do brothers from Pleasanton Lodge No. 321, Mosaic Lodge No. 218, Alameda Lodge No. 167, and Acacia Lodge No. 243. Starting in 2010, they came together to build a new place to practice Masonry in California. They were motivated by love of the craft, and love of a place that’s special for every California brother – the first Masonic Home in Union City. In a picturesque canyon tucked far from the hum of campus, they cleared and graded the land for an outdoor degree site. They dug ditches. They hauled dirt. They laid pipe and poured concrete. For almost three years, more than 40 brothers – some skilled in construction; some who’d never come closer than the symbolic tools of the lodge – leveled and plumbed, measured and squared. And sweated.

“We didn’t contract anything out,” says Jack McClellan. “We did it all ourselves.” McClellan is a retired general contractor who lives at the Home. In 2010, he was serving as master of the on-campus Siminoff Lodge, and led the brothers in advocating for an outdoor site. When they got the go-ahead from Grand Lodge, he became the site’s de facto Hiram Abiff, drawing up the plans and supervising all the work.

Today, lodges from throughout the state travel to the site on weekends to perform degrees. They do their work protected on three sides by the towering hills of the box canyon and on the fourth by a cluster of young redwoods. Hawks and turkeys fly overhead. A mounted patrol of riders on palomino horses from Livermore’s Aahmes Shrine sometimes stands sentinel on the hilltops.

“Practicing in a setting like this pushes Masonry further. It shows that our craft can be done anywhere in the world,” says Ken Hamm, a journeyman plumber and electrician. Back when construction began, Hamm was an employee of the Home and a relatively new Mason. His skills and time were integral to achieving the brothers’ goals.

Masons go to the tops of mountains and the depths of caves for outdoor degrees, Hamm points out. These days, they also come to their Masonic Home. “This degree site belongs to every Mason in California,” he says.

Before the outdoor degree site was built, this corner of the campus was enjoyed only by cows that wandered over from the grazing fields behind the Home. The journey to the site recalls this solitude – a slipping away from the buzz of community to the stillness of nature. Brothers are shuttled in carts down an old dirt fire road, winding steeply past a line of redwood trees, donated by the Homes board members; approaching the site, they entered the dappled shade of redwood groves dedicated to the site’s founders and supporting grand masters. Altogether, these 30 or so redwoods will eventually soar up to 80 feet high, creating a cathedral in the open air.