By Leo Newman | Contributing Writer
Tucked away a block north of busy Alberta Avenue sits the Historic Alberta House, a calm community center that stretches along the 2300 block of NE Sumner Street. Since 2015, the Alberta House has been the home of several arts non-profits, including its namesake theatre company and Vanport Mosaic. In October this year, Alberta House was sold to Moreland Holdings LLC, which belongs to
Frank S. Baillie and The Alberta Lodge
In the early 1900s, prominent mason and businessman Frank S. Baillie was accused of embezzling nearly $15,000 (approx. $474,000 in 2025) from the Columbia Gold Mining Company (of Baker County), which he had managed since 1897. The affair resulted in criminal and civil suits against him and his employer which led to his resignation soon thereafter.
In 1919, Baillie established the Alberta Lodge. The ceremony took place one March evening in Baker’s Hall on NE Alberta and 17th Streets (the second floor of the building which now houses the Community Cycling Center and Mimosa Studios).
On July 8th, 1923, The Alberta Lodge No. 172 of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons laid the cornerstone of the building which would become Alberta House. In its first year, The Alberta Lodge enjoyed an above average membership, but quickly lost its dispensation in 1920 after the Grand Lodge called for the removal of all its officers after it found some guilty of “improper conduct.” After a reorganization with Woodburn businessman Frank Settlemeier and Baillie still at the helm, the Grand Lodge offered an official charter to the Alberta Lodge and commissioned it to draft a constitution. By December 1923, the club had 76 official members.
Also that year, the growing lodge acquired two plots of land on NE Sumner between 22nd and 23rd Avenue. John B. Clark, a member of the lodge, drew up plans for an Arts and Crafts style two-story concrete structure. Amos Stevens, another member, led its construction. Upon its completion in 1924, the lodge led a march from Baker’s Hall down Alberta to its new clubhouse.
Funding for the new $16,000 building was raised through a prize masquerade ball and other events hosted by other masonic groups, including the Order of the Eastern Star, at Baker’s Hall through the winter of 1923. Through either pair of double doors that open to NE 23rd, members walked directly into a spacious meeting hall fit for a theatre. During ceremonies, their wives and children were resigned to the seats on the mezzanine, which wraps around the hall on three sides. A narrow staircase winds up the far corner of the hall and leads to the office of the lodge’s Grand Master (now the office of Historic Alberta House director Vin Shambrey). In a wide hallway running the length of the main hall, the masons donned their robes before ceremonies. To the right of the hall is a parlor, which remains mostly true to its original construction, save for a new interior stairwell to the second floor.
The Alberta Lodge hosted community events with other local masonic groups for decades, at one point amassing a membership of 450 men. But by 1986, the fear of crime in Alberta, and the impracticality of maintaining the spacious lodge pushed its 150 remaining members to relocate to a rented space in Parkrose.
Modern Proprietors
In January, 1986 the building was sold to the Fellowship Church of God, which operated out of the small church across the street (known as the Little Church). In 2005, the church used it as collateral when purchasing a larger facility on 122nd Ave. However in 2012, after the market crash caused revenues to fall under their mortgage rates, the church defaulted on both buildings.
The abandoned building was set for demolition when it was purchased by Cerimon House, an arts and humanities nonprofit, in December, 2012. Founder Randall Stuart had come up to Portland with a cohort of Ashland thespians a few years prior and set up a theatre troupe in the Little Church across the street. The building had fallen into considerable disrepair and Stuart spent the next two years renovating it. Cerimon House reopened in the Alberta Lodge in October 2015. The venue showcased music, films and theatre pieces that often explored gender, race and sexuality.
Stuart retired in 2019 and handed the baton to Broadway actor and director Vin Shambrey. Shambrey’s most recent film Outdoor School is his experience with housing insecurity as a child, was nominated for Best Narrative Feature and Best Editing at the 2025 Woodstock Film Festival. A Portland native, Shambrey rebranded the organization as the Historic Alberta House, admittedly a more community-centered name than ‘Cerimon.’ Shambrey steered Alberta House through the pandemic, but not without the help of Event Manager Jo Pierce, the nonprofit’s only other full-time employee, who has been involved since 2015.
For the last several years, The Vanport Mosaic, a nonprofit that raises awareness of the 1948 Vanport Flood and hosts events for the annual Vanport Festival, has operated out of Alberta House. It recently converted the mason’s locker room into a permanent installation of photos and memorabilia from the city of Vanport.
The walls of the main hall are decorated in the larger than life paintings of the late Dutch-born Portland artist Henk Pender which depict the harrowing aftermath of the flood which displaced 18,000 people, approximately a third of them African Americans, in vivid color. The stairwell and mezzanine showcase the colorful murals of Portland artist Latoya Lovely, as well as a portrait of Shambrey.
Earlier this year, the Historic Alberta House narrowly avoided foreclosure after being sold to a local entrepreneur in October. The benefactor, Jeffery Moreland, owner of Raimore Construction, was chosen over developers who planned to demolish the property to build an apartment complex, and has reportedly offered the Alberta House a reduced rent plan for the next three years.
Leo Newman is a paralegal and writer based in NE Portland. Trained as a historian, he enjoys exploring the history of Portland and the Pacific Northwest.
