Swastika on Historic Building Forces Summer Camp Shutdown

A California organization has shut down all its summer camp sessions after several staff members quit over a swastika embedded in the architecture of one of the historic buildings.

Hidden Villa, which is located in Los Altos, will no longer be able to provide a camp experience for around 900 children who had planned to attend over the coming months, the organization's Board Chair Peter Hartzell and interim Executive Director Philip Arca wrote in a letter posted on the website on Wednesday.

The organization said that it will cancel all summer camp sessions in 2022, a decision that Hidden Villa said was "the first time in our history that we canceled all Camp programming."

Hidden Villa said that the abrupt departure of camp staff, which led to the summer camp cancellations, was partially caused by discussions around symbols on the historic Duveneck house, which was built in 1929 and has three tiles with Buddhist swastikas and a lotus embedded in the architecture.

"It was brought to the community's attention that the Buddhist symbols were experienced differently and some individuals experienced harm from their presence on the building," Hidden Villa said in the letter. "A process to address the issue was identified with Staff and Board. After community discussions, on Monday, June 6, the decision was made to remove the tiles from the building. They were removed on Tuesday, June 7."

However, the camp leadership team resigned on Sunday before the removal of the tiles on Tuesday, according to Hidden Villa. Four camp staff leadership members resigned, including the summer camp director.

"Losing these key positions led to the heart-wrenching decision that we would be unable to responsibly provide a safe Summer Camp experience," Hidden Villa said in the letter. "If we thought that we could provide a safe experience for our youth, we would have found a way to operate Camp"

The resignation also prompted "the need for the organization to continue to pause, reflect, and further develop plans of action to address the racial equity concerns shared by staff."

"Any pain that our current and former staff, especially any staff of color, have felt during their tenure at the organization, deeply saddens us. We are committed to creating an environment where all feel seen, welcome and heard," the organization added.

Camp director Philip James, who is Black, told the Los Altos Town Crier that he resigned on Sunday over Hidden Villa's "failure to address issues of structural and institutional racism."

James expressed that he and other staff members were frustrated because the organization didn't quickly remove the swastika designs on the exterior of the historic building on the camp's property that is also used to host events such as rehearsal dinners and corporate retreats.

The camp was already struggling with staff shortages before the resignations and had canceled its day camps in May that targeted school children, including kindergarteners.

"Staffing for Camp has been a challenge over the past several years. In anticipation, we significantly invested in outreach, but still struggled with meeting programmatic needs. We were at less than 50% of ideal staffing in early May," the letter read, adding that staffing is an industry wide challenge.

Newsweek reached out to Hidden Villa's board for comment.