The historic building on Hornblend Street in Pacific Beach formerly occupied by the Pacific Beach Woman’s Club has been transformed into the California Zoroastrian Center.

“CZC is very proud to acquire this property as the historical record of the building is very attractive to us,” said the new cultural center’s spokesperson Farhad Kermani, who added, “Interestingly, one of our major donors, who became Iran’s first female mayor, has been a strong advocate of women’s rights in Iran. “She and her family are proud to be one of the donors for purchasing this building with such a valuable historic record.”

Developer Ramin Karimi, the previous owner of the 3,600-square-foot building that is more than a century old at 1172 Hornblend St., had different plans initially for the property before he sold it to the Zoroastrians about seven months ago.

“The plan was to build six condo units on two different levels on top of the parking lot,” said Karimi. “But they reached out to us with this idea of their building a cultural center. They convinced me, and I changed my mind and let them take it over. They had a very good plan, and they have been working on remodeling.”

Kermani of CZC shared a humorous tale of how he first approached Karimi with the prospect of purchasing the property. “I told them, ‘I want to buy this house but I have two minor problems; I don’t have any money, and I don’t know if my community will let me buy this place,’ said Kermani noting, “And [Karimi] was laughing.”

Kermani said the Zoroastrian culture in Southern California has been headquartered in Orange County with almost 2,800 members since 1979. He added CZC’s board of directors decided to acquire new buildings in both Los Angeles and San Diego to serve their expanding membership.

“We are nonprofit,” pointed out Kermani. “Our main goal is serving the community. We mostly are looking at it as a cultural center. We are trying to pass the culture to the next generation.”

Kermani said remodeling has involved converting a part of the property’s parking lot into space for outside activities, as well as repainting the building and putting in a wrought-iron fence soon around the entire property for security. He added they “will eventually allow the building to be rented out for public use for private events and community meetings. Whoever wants to use it is welcome to come talk to us,” he said.

Inside the lobby of the building now being revamped is a prominently displayed donation tree. “The whole building was purchased by voluntary donations by our members, the root of our community,” noted Kermani

For more information, visit czc.org.

Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world’s oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster). It is a monotheistic faith predicting the ultimate conquest of evil by good. It served as the state religion for the ancient Persian empire. With possible roots dating back to the 2nd millennium BCE, Zoroastrianism enters recorded history around the middle of the 6th century BCE. The faith declined from the 7th century onward as a direct result of the Arab-Muslim conquest of Persia, which led to a large-scale persecution of Zoroastrians.

Recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians in the world at around 110,000-120,000 at most, with the majority of this figure living in India, Iran, and North America.

Some teachings of the Prophet Zarathushtra:

– Worship of one supreme being, the first cause of all things

– The aim of life is to make the world happy, to make others happy, and to be happy ourselves. This aim is to reach a state of perfection in ourselves and help the world in its progress towards perfection.

– People should be witnesses on the side of truth, proving untruth and evil to be false.

– The right method of obtaining happiness is summarized by Zarathushtra who said, “Happiness is the lot of those who work for others’ happiness.”

– In every one of us there is a divine essence within, the soul, the conscience, whatever you choose to call it.

– A simple universal maxim of the faith is to practice Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds.