The Hardman IOOF Lodge Hall is a two-story, wood-frame, false front building with horizontal wood and T 1-11 siding, a stone foundation, and corrugated metal roof. The building is located toward the front of its quarter-block lot and faces east onto US Highway 207 (Hardman’s historic main street). The building includes a one-story, shed roof addition on the south side, constructed in 1946. Today a metal container is located behind (west of) this addition, connected to the building with a temporary enclosed passageway. Also on the parcel, behind the hall, are a wood-frame woodshed and a wood privy, both clad in horizontal board with a shingle roof and wood foundation.
The 1900 building retains its Italianate features and detailing, including ornate brackets supporting a deep cornice on the false front. Paired, double-hung windows with deep, raked crown molding on the building’s second level are also indicative of the Italianate style. The central, recessed entry to the first floor storefront is flanked large, six-light storefront windows and enframed by panels of narrow, diagonal wood within molded surrounds. The steeply-pitched gable projecting above the false front is an unusual subtype of the false front form, and is embellished with wood detailing. The front entry porch with its shed roof is not original to the building.
The building interior retains its original lodge hall floor plan at the second level, with its original ceremonial raised platform on the east end, restricted entrance areas, and membership seating gallery along the north and south sides of the hall. The first floor, originally a general store and another meeting space, now functions as a community center. The one-story addition, built as a kitchen and dining room, still fulfills that function. The Hardman IOOF Lodge Hall, now known as the Hardman Community Center, retains much of its original integrity of design, materials, setting and craftsmanship, and is the rare remaining downtown building in Hardman still in use and fulfilling many of its historic functions. |