CGS Secret Rooms: Dant Basement

This edition of Catlin Gabel School Secret Rooms will cover the Dant House Basement. 


It can be found in between the stairs to Casey Mills’ office and the ninth grade lounge, behind a door marked “Maintenance.” Despite being in plain view, not very many people know about its existence and what the basement is used for. 

The Dant basement is used to store physical student records. While most files are also digitized, Catlin Gabel School (CGS) is required to save them, and the basement has records going back to the early 1920s. 

Students don’t know about the basement partly due to the confidential records, but also because there is a mold problem. A few months ago, a pipe broke in the basement, humidifying the air and causing mold. 

”We’re all safe, no one is going to die,” said Upper School Registrar Robyn Washburn.

The school has called in a specialist to deal with the problem, and Washburn confirmed that the mold will not spread to the rest of Dant House.

Information Technology (IT) uses the basement as a filming space for Tech Tip Tuesday, and they store equipment and a server rack in the basement.

Code regulations prohibit the basement from being converted into a classroom, although until the purchase of Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, CGS did need more space. Only one exit would make the space hazardous as a classroom. 

“What you’d have to do to comply with regulations is probably not worth it,” Washburn said. There are no windows in the basement, making it an unpleasant classroom environment. 

While the basement is not something that is actively hidden from the student body, its existence is not  publicized because students can’t go down into it unsupervised, as it’s not safe (at the moment), and there are confidentiality issues regarding the records.