Outdoor Art Club

The thirty-five women the bronze counts wrote themselves a wider brief than preservation. Their 1902 bylaws set out to keep Mill Valley's scenery, to plant the grounds of its public buildings, and to turn public sentiment against the wanton killing of birds and game, and the club began, by most accounts, over redwoods being felled near the railroad depot. Maybeck gave them a shingled hall with an unusual roof truss in 1904. Two years later they handed it to the Red Cross to shelter and feed people fleeing the burning city.

What the plaque says

Outdoor Art Club The Outdoor Art Club was designed in 1904 by Bernard Maybeck, internationally known American architect. Particularly notable for its unusual roof truss system, the building exemplifies Maybeck's creative use of natural materials. The club, founded in 1902 by 35 Mill Valley women, is dedicated to preserving the area's natural environment. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 922 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Outdoor Art Club, April 26, 1979.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muir Woods National Monument — 1.7 mi
  A redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
• Muir Beach Overlook — 3.7 mi
  A cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
• Earthquake Trail — 16 mi
  A short loop along the San Andreas, where a broken fence shows how far Point Reyes moved in under a minute in 1906.
• Kule Loklo — 17 mi
  A Coast Miwok village built in the 1970s to honour a people its builders were told had died out. They had not.

More markers nearby

• First Sawmill in Marin County — 0.4 mi
• Green Brae Brick Kiln — 3.4 mi
• Mission San Rafael Arcángel — 4.8 mi
• Home of Lord Charles Snowden Fairfax — 5.8 mi