В штате Висконсин отреставрировали исторический кинозал 1920-х годов, превратив его в современный культурный центр

THREE LAKES, Wis. (WJFW) — If you’ve ever driven through Three Lakes, you’ve probably noticed the distinctive building with the curved roof downtown. Today it’s home to the Three Lakes Center for the Arts, but for more than 75 years that building has been quietly reinventing itself. It has been a movie theater, apartments, an antique mall known as the Hodge Podge Lodge, and today, once again, a place where people gather for entertainment. Its story actually begins long before the building itself was constructed. Three Lakes once had an Opera House that served as the community’s gathering place for dances, meetings, school programs, traveling performers, and likely even silent films during the earliest days of motion pictures. That chapter came to an abrupt end in 1924 when the devastating Three Lakes cyclone destroyed the Opera House, leaving the community without a dedicated entertainment venue. Over the following years several proposals surfaced to build a new theater, including an ambitious theater block that would have combined a movie house with apartments, offices, and retail space, but none of those plans ever became reality. Following World War II, the community decided it had waited long enough. In December of 1947, local business leaders and resort owners formed the Three Lakes Theater Corporation and began selling shares of stock to local residents. It was a true community project. Rather than waiting for an outside company to build a theater, the people of Three Lakes chose to build one themselves. Local banker Fred S. Dobbs, Arthur Joers, Roy Guthrie, Peter Paulbeck and other civic leaders spearheaded the effort, selling $100 shares to local residents, whom invested in the project because they believed a modern theater would strengthen both the community and its growing tourist economy. The corporation hired local builder and former Major League Baseball star Fred “Cy” Williams to design the project. Williams was already well-known throughout the community for his construction work, and he proposed an innovative design using a surplus military Quonset building left over from World War II. The curved steel structure created a spacious auditorium while keeping construction costs within reach, and Williams incorporated modern Art Deco styling that gave the theater an appearance unlike anything else in the Northwoods. The Three Lakes Theater opened in the spring of 1949, even receiving an award from the Motion Picture Association for Cy Willams's unique architectural design. It quickly became woven into the fabric of community life. Families came to watch the latest Hollywood releases, vacationers made a night at the movies part of their Northwoods getaway, and generations of children experienced the magic of the big screen beneath that distinctive curved roof. For more than two decades the theater remained one of the community’s favorite gathering places, operated for much of its early history by Richard Conwa,y and later Steve and Alma Conway, whose family helped keep the movies playing during the theater’s busiest years. Like countless independently owned theaters across America, changing times eventually caught up with Three Lakes. Television became a fixture in nearly every home, audiences declined, and in 1972 the theater closed its doors. Fortunately, the building escaped the fate of so many neighborhood theaters that were demolished during those years. Instead, it was adapted into apartments and commercial space by Maury and Rosemary LaPlante, dramatically changing its façade and adding a second floor. It was purchased by Jerry and Kay Luczak in 1992 and they had the theater space split into two floors as it became the Hodge Podge Lodge — an eclectic antique and craft mall remembered fondly by many Northwoods residents. Although the renovations dramatically changed the interior, they unintentionally preserved much of the original theater behind walls, ceilings, and later construction. The building’s most remarkable chapter actually began in a pair of small storefronts across the street. The effort to create the Three Lakes Center for the Arts had actually been growing for several years. A dedicated group of community volunteers came together with the belief that the Northwoods deserved a place where the arts could thrive year round. Their vision reached far beyond a traditional art gallery. They imagined a community gathering place where visual art, live music, theater, film, educational workshops, children's programs, and special events could all exist under one roof. Led by volunteers including Marie Moore, Gay Scheffen, Alma Conway and a passionate board of directors, the organization quickly gained momentum, proving there was both enthusiasm and support for bringing a permanent arts center to Three Lakes. That dream became reality through an extraordinary act of generosity. An anonymous Chicago couple with summer ties to Three Lakes provided the funds needed to purchase the former theater, allowing the organization to begin one of the most ambitious preservation projects in the region. As volunteers removed decades of remodeling, they made an astonishing discovery. Cy Williams’ theater had never really disappeared. The original stage was still there. The beautiful Art Deco proscenium arch remained hidden behind later walls. Even the soaring Quonset ceiling survived above the inserted second floor. Instead of rebuilding history, the community was uncovering it. When the Three Lakes Center for the Arts reopened the restored theater in 2009, it wasn’t simply preserving a historic building, it was creating a new future for it. Today the organization presents concerts featuring nationally recognized and regional musicians, classic and independent films, gallery exhibitions, children’s art programs, educational workshops, local history presentations, and countless community events throughout the year. What began as two small storefront galleries has grown into one of northern Wisconsin’s most vibrant cultural organizations — serving residents and visitors alike while remaining rooted in the same volunteer spirit that launched it more than 20 years ago. That spirit continues to shape the building today. Volunteers remain at the heart of the organization, while fundraising campaigns and community support continue preserving the historic theater for future generations. Projects such as the Raise the Roof campaign have helped protect the building’s iconic Quonset roof, ensuring that one of America’s rare surviving Quonset theaters will continue serving the Three Lakes community for decades to come. Looking back, the story of the Three Lakes Theater is about movies, architecture, the arts, and historic preservation. But more than that, it’s about a community that repeatedly chose to invest in itself. One generation built a theater, another found a way to keep the building alive when the movies ended, and a third rediscovered what had been hidden and transformed it into something new. More than 75 years after opening night, the old theater is still doing exactly what it was built to do…It’s bringing people together, and that, is a legacy worth preserving.