Throughout our 125-year history, Hummel Architects has designed memorable landmark buildings in the Treasure Valley, including the Idaho State Capitol Building. But our lineage also includes smaller projects that are still used daily as commercial, residential, and religious facilities—buildings that are woven into the fabric of everyday life. The Rosedale Odd Fellows Hall at 1755 Broadway Avenue in Boise is part of a collection of storefronts that have housed stores, dance studios, pet groomers, grocery stores, and countless other uses for the past 115 years.

“The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) was established in eighteenth-century England as a relief organization…. By 1900, the Odd Fellows had more than 500 members throughout Boise, with lodges at several locations. By 1903 the South Boise lodge, Rosedale Lodge No. 102, was organized, and the members immediately began planning to build a lodge.

In the spring of 1906, the lodge purchased a 100-foot lot on the west side of Broadway for $500. By June the foundation for a two-story building was completed. Designed by Tourtellotte and Co. [one of the previous names of Hummel Architects], the $6,000 building was constructed of pressed concrete block and when completed was praised as one of the best equipped fraternal buildings in the state. As was typical of lodge buildings, the first floor was used for a shop and the second floor was reserved for lodge activities. The building not only served the Odd Fellows; it was also used as a lending library, post office, and community hall.” (South Boise Scrapbook: A Neighborhood History by Barbara Perry Bauer, 2014)

“The Rosedale Odd Fellows Temple is architecturally significant as one of the earliest and best uses in the city of concrete block as a structural material and as a decorative device…. With is picturesque stepped gable, it is perhaps the most distinctive building in the small cluster which marks the early community of Rosedale, now part of Boise.” (National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Rosedale Odd Fellows Temple. National Park Service)