I’ve always had a soft spot for McMenamins. The company has a knack for keeping old buildings alive without sanding off the quirks. At Anderson School that means classrooms turned into hotel rooms, a courtyard once filled with running kids is now dotted with beer drinkers and garden beds, the principal’s office is reborn as a tiny bar serving cocktails, and a community room named for Karen Thorndike—the former teacher who became the first American woman to sail solo around the world.

Built in 1931, Bothell’s first junior high served students for decades before becoming an alternative high school. The city purchased the property in 2009, and McMenamins took it over a year later, restoring the five-acre campus into one of its most ambitious projects. It reopened in 2015 and has since become a world unto itself.

Anderson School in the mid 1930s.

When I heard the Bothell property was celebrating its ten-year anniversary, I joined a history tour to see the place through the eyes of the people who brought it back to life. The tour was led by Caitlin Popp, McMenamins’ tour guide manager and former company historian, who has a story for every hallway. She began with the building’s early years—the 1931 Zigzag Moderne-style art deco design by Seattle architect Earl Wilson Morrison, built by local shipwright Alfred Sundholm, and later renamed for longtime principal Wilbert “Andy” Anderson, remembered for his humor and his notoriously bad homebrewed beer. “We really see ourselves as stewards of these buildings,” Popp says. “It’s not just preservation, it’s giving them new life and inviting the community back in.”

The McMenamins aesthetic is instantly recognizable: low amber lighting (there’s a strict wattage cap at every property), surreal murals, found vintage-style furniture, celestial-inspired stained glass, and potted plants that seem to twist and grow everywhere. The atmosphere feels artful and distinctly Northwest—eclectic without being cluttered and dramatic without being fussy. “It’s whimsical art deco. We call it historic surrealism,” says Popp. Think velvet couches and leather chairs, the kind you might find in a classy old library or a swanky lawyer’s office from the 1930s.

The Woodshop, once the school’s wood shop, is now home to the property’s largest bar—a lively space with shuffleboard and pool tables, and a counter that runs nearly the length of the building. Just off this area, the brewery occupies a smaller adjoining room packed with ten stainless steel tanks. On tap are McMenamins standards alongside house-made creations like Bobcat Pale Ale, named for the school mascot, and experimental batches aged in wine or whiskey barrels. “We pay attention to what people love,” says brewer Alex Coggins, “but we still make the fun, weird stuff because that’s what McMenamins has always done.”

McMenamins swapped the fluorescents for warm, glowing lights in the hallway outside the old principal’s office, now a tiny bar and lounge.

Photo courtesy of McMenamins

Once the school’s wood shop, this lively bar now has shuffleboard, pool, arcade games, and TVs tuned to the game.

Photo courtesy of McMenamins

The old gym now hosts movies and live music, its walls lined with original vintage magician posters, including one from Carter the Great, a Houdini-era illusionist. The warm-water pool, where synchronized swimming coach Charlotte Davis once trained two Bothell Olympians after the sport debuted in the Games, still shimmers beneath skylights that stay open year-round. Since opening, more than 27,000 children and 200 adults have learned to swim here. Upstairs, the tiki-style Nui Nui bar overlooks the pool, where the mood is sultry and the Mai Tais are reliably good.

The former Anderson School gym before its transformation into today’s movie theater and music venue.

Photo courtesy of McMenamins

Before the restoration, the Northshore Pool was home to local swim lessons and community programs.

Photo courtesy of McMenamins

The North Shore Lagoon Pool today.

Photo courtesy of McMenamins

Nui Nui tiki bar overlooks the pool, a cozy spot for drinks and conversation.

Photo courtesy of McMenamins

Step outside and the campus opens into a patchwork of courtyards and gardens. Some are tucked into quiet corners; others spill toward the main walkways. Most are set up for all seasons, with covered patios and firepits that keep the air smelling of campfire.

Head gardener Sarah led us through edible beds that replaced old asphalt still faintly marked by the school’s four-square courts, now filled with herbs, flowers, and fruit trees used in the bars and kitchens. “Anywhere we have space for a garden, we do,” she says. We sampled four kinds of figs grown on the property, clusters of Concord-style grapes, and peppery, edible flowers. “We harvest things as they’re ready and take them into the kitchen for folks to use,” she says. A small flock of chickens adds to the sense that nothing here goes to waste.

Just beyond the gardens is The Shed—the only new structure on the property. The walls are paneled in dark wood, and bottles line the tiny bar from floor to ceiling. Bar manager Ethan Brotherton calls it “an altar to the brown stuff.” More than 200 whiskeys fill the space, from small-batch American to bottles from Japan, Israel, and beyond. In summer, the bar hosts Whiskey Talks with visiting distillers, and its whiskey club draws regulars chasing rare pours. If you visit, try the flannel shirt, a mix of Benriach 10, Meletti Amaro, apple cider, lemon, and spices, with the option to have it served warm.

Tavern on the Square, the property’s main restaurant, sits at the center of it all. Inside, stained-glass windows by artist David Schlicker scatter colored light across the wood beams. On the walls are several of the late Lyle Hehn’s large-scale paintings of art nouveau figures, suns, and swirling stills. Hehn, whose work also appears on McMenamins beer labels like Ruby, Hammerhead, and Terminator Stout, helped define the company’s surreal, Grateful Dead-inspired aesthetic.

The stone fireplace still warms the room in what was once the school cafeteria.

Photo courtesy of McMenamins

The McMenamin brothers, Mike and Brian, opened their first pub in Portland in 1983 and slowly built an empire across Oregon and Washington. Many of their 55 properties began as schools, theaters, and hotels, restored rather than replaced. The brothers have long said their goal is to keep the past in the present, a philosophy that guides everything from architecture to artwork. Today, McMenamins employs roughly 2,680 people.

And 10 years in, Anderson School still feels like the most imaginative campus in Bothell. “We really love this concept of community gathering spaces,” Popp says. “That’s what we consider all of our properties to be—places where the community can come together.”

McMenamins Anderson School will host history tours on Oct. 10 at noon, 2 p.m., and 4 p.m. with more planned throughout the year.