A Venerable Museum o A History compiled by Eileen Mize, former Director of Communications (2011-2019)
The formidable one-story square-shaped building surrounding a central courtyard and located on Maher Street on the southwest corner of the Justin-Siena campus was completed in the latter part of 1966. The building served as the primary residence for a community of Brothers serving at Justin High School, then an all-boys high school founded by the De La Salle Christian Brothers in 1966 alongside the neighboring Siena High School for girls founded by the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael. The two schools would merge soon after forming Justin-Siena High School. Five Brothers lived in the residence that first year, and they enjoyed full use of the on-site Chapel for Masses, daily prayer, and student gatherings. Father Paul Link, CPPS, offered the first Mass in the Chapel—midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 1966, and in addition to being the first Justin Principal, Brother Bede Van Duran, FSC, served as the first Director of the Brothers Community. As the years went on and the residence needs of the Brothers changed, so did the building —becoming a designated Brothers retirement community and then ultimately being closed as a residence and sold to the school. With minimal use for storage and some transitional faculty housing in the early 2000s, the building and all its amenities, including the Chapel, sat somewhat under-utilized and collecting dust until the 2009-2010 school year when there was an increasing need for space for offices and programs. So then began a renovation project to bring the building back to life. At the start of the following school year, an extensive interior renovation created what we now know today as the Christian Brothers Center (a.k.a. CBC). In an effort to physically connect it more to campus and student/faculty foot traffic, the Beckstoffer Family Grapegrowers Plaza was built and officially blessed on the first day of school in 2010. The reimagined CBC included the Main Office and Welcome Center, the Offices of the President, Business, Communications, Advancement, and Admissions; as well as a home for the student services of counseling—both college and guidance. The Brother Conrad Kearny Conference Room and smaller conference rooms kept busy, and then there was the Chapel. 10 AVANTI 2020
