California Lutheran University was gifted approximately $1.6 million by the James M. Hage Trust to build a replica of the Norwegian-style Borgund Stave Church on campus, according to Ryan Van Ommeren, associate vice president of Planning and Services.
Vice President for University Advancement Regina Biddings-Muro said Hage passed away in 2020, leaving behind a trust, with trustee Matt Pressey tasked to manage it.
The money was left specifically to Cal Lutheran to build this โlong time comingโ project, according to Christine Cano, capital projects architect. Cano said Cal Lutheran had up to five years to decide what project could be done with the donation since Hageโs passing in 2020.ย
Pressey said although Hage did not have any direct ties to Cal Lutheran, as he was not an alumnus, nor a part of the staff, he was of Scandinavian descent and decided to donate after being introduced to the campus through its Scandinavian involvement. However, the extent of his direct involvement with the Scandinavian Center is unknown.
โMr. Hage’s relationship started with Cal Lutheran in 2006. โฉI understand that was the first time he came to the campus. To my knowledge, he is not an alum. He came here and fell in love,โ Biddings-Muro said.ย
According to Cano, members of the Scandinavian Center were trying to raise money to build a replica of the Borgund Stave Church years ago, but had not been able to build it due to it being large and expensive to build. She said Hage knew of this and eventually donated the money in his trust for it to be built.
The original Borgund Stave Church was built around 1180 and is well preserved to this day. It is โone of the most distinctive stave churches in Norwayโ and has well-known features such as the carvings of dragons heads along the roof, according to Visit Norway.
Van Ommeren and Cano said they faced challenges developing a design to present to Biddings-Muro and Pressey because constructing a replica of the Borgund Stave Church would be too costly. Cano said the original structure is a โone-story building, [with] three-story height.โ
โThough this is a very handsome, lovely gift, it’s not enough to build a church,โ Biddings-Muro said. โWe had to be creative to honor Mr. Hage’s memory and his vision inside of the funds that existed in his estate.โ
Biddings-Muro said when Van Ommeren and Cano came up with the concept of an outdoor classroom in the Borgund Stave Church style, Pressey greenlit the idea right away. Pressey said the trust agreement allowed for an alternate project just in case an exact replica of the Borgund Stave Church couldnโt be built, as long as he agreed to it.
โWe had just finished that outdoor classroom and itโs been really successful, and we just thought, โWhat if we did an outdoor classroom in the style of the Borgund Stave Church? We can try to take as many pieces as we can,โ Cano said. โSo thatโs what we presented to the trustee and he agreed. He thought it was great, because itโs something we can actually build, itโll be in the center of campus, [and] itโll cause a lot of interest.โ
Pressey said a key aspect he likes about the new structure is its functionality, and that students will be able to use it in any way that is helpful to them.
โI think itโll be more functional and it will be in a nice part of the university’s campus,โ Pressey said. โIt’ll have all the ornamental design and features of the Stave Church and yet I think โฆ it can get a lot of use in different ways. It can be used for a church service outside, or a classroom or anybody can use it to study.โ
Pressey said Hageโs main reasoning for wanting this project to be built was to โhelp remember the Scandinavian Heritage.โ
โI think his vision was more for the architecture and the historic value of building a replica,โ Pressey said. โIt was really more, from what I understand, for the value of seeing the architecture and the design and appreciating that.โ
Erlend Omdahl โ25, a Cal Lutheran alumnus from Norway, said the project has a cultural significance for him because โit really reflects the history well because of the Norwegian pioneers that used to live here back in the end of the 1800s, beginning of the 1900s.โ
Those pioneers are the five Norwegian families that moved to the Conejo Valley from Norway and inhabited land nearby and throughout the Cal Lutheran community. The families were those of Nils Olsen, Ole Nelson, Lars Pederson, George Hanson and Ole Anderson, some of whom now bare on-campus buildings in their name.
Omdahl said this addition to the campus can be more of an attraction for Norwegian students in the future to want to attend Cal Lutheran.ย
โItโs more significant in a way that it just kind of feels like home because [we] are pretty far away from Norway, so [the pavilion] is something weโd be more used to,โ Omdahl said. โItโs just something like when you get here, itโs something thatโs familiar, like part of the Norwegian culture.โ
According to Cano and Biddings-Muro, the pavilion is going to have not only the physical characteristics of the Borgund Stave Church, but will also contain education components for students to learn more about the history and the significance of Scandinavian culture on campus.
Cano said she and Van Ommeren are making final adjustments with the timber contractor and are finishing a package to submit to the city for approval to start building the structure.ย
โItโs gonna be tricky, schedule wise, because it takes a long time. Each of the pieces are carved and they have notches in them, so they go together. Itโs really a craftsmanโs construction,โ Cano said.ย
The Hage Pavilion is scheduled to be completed on campus during 2026, according to signage posted between Starbucks and the Pearson Library.
