From 1922 and for the four first years at Sri Ramanasramam, Bhagavan lived in a thatched hut in front of Mother’s shrine. He used to sit there night and day on a small elevated seat of cement. It was only in 1926 that Sri Bhagavan’s Hall, (later known as the ‘Old Hall’), was constructed under the supervision of Gopal Rao. The Old Hall was the Ashram’s first proper building, made with brick and mud walls, and served as Bhagavan’s sole dwelling for the next twenty-three years. Dr. Narayana Iyer had given Rs 1000 to finance the construction of what was originally intended to be a kitchen and dining hall. Within a short time, however, it became clear that there was a more pressing need: to have a hall for Bhagavan and the many guests he was receiving on a regular basis. An additional thatched structure was then built in the area of the present day Samadhi hall to serve as kitchen and dining hall.

By the early 1940s the number of visitors to the Ashram had increased significantly. There had been a door on the southern side of the Old Hall opposite Bhagavan’s sofa. The window on the northern side was converted into a door, so that devotees were able to enter by the southern door, have darshan of Bhagavan and exit through the northern door. By the late 1940s, as crowds of visitors grew even more, the Old Hall could no longer accommodate everyone and so during Vedaparayana, Bhagavan would sit outside under a palm-leaf awning. Starting in November 1947 Bhagavan began to spend more time in the thatched Jubilee Hall. Two years later the ten-year construction work on a temple over the Mother’s Samadhi was completed, together with a new hall for Sri Bhagavan and devotees. In the summer of 1949, Bhagavan moved to the new site and the Ashram library was moved into the Old Hall. After Bhagavan’s final operation in December 1949, Bhagavan returned neither to the New Hall nor the Old Hall but confined himself to a small room (later known as the Nirvana Room) opposite the New Hall. 

A few months after Bhagavan’s Mahasamadhi, a fire broke out in the Old Hall but fortunately there was no serious damage. In the 1970s, when termites were detected in the Old Hall, efforts were made to eradicate them but within ten years the insects had impregnated the walls and the roof, resulting in severe leakage, flooding and perpetually dampened walls that increasingly showed signs of severe stress and major cracking. By the mid-1980s structural engineers determined that the deterioration of the building due to age, weather, and insects was so extensive that the entire building would have to be reconstructed. Great pains were taken to produce an exact replica of the original building and of the original fixtures and tiles (that were intact) were incorporated into the new building. The renovated Old Hall was dedicated on the 5th December, 1986.