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Derelict opera house transformed to center of community pride
Located about 10 miles south of the Platte River, Minden is built on the plain that covers much of the south-central portion of the state, a flat-as-a-tabletop region where you can often see the grain elevators of the next town before leaving the one you’re in.
Across the Burlington Northern tracks and four blocks south of the Pioneer Village tourist attraction for which Minden is widely known, lies the Square. It’s easy to find; just look for the tall white dome of the 1907 courthouse, around which the Square is centered. As in many county seats, the beautiful courthouse is a point of pride for local residents, even more so if they know what it took for Minden to become the county seat.
Minden began in 1875 as a post office operated by an immigrant who named the would-be town for his home in Germany. By 1891, Minden’s status as the county seat made it a logical spot for a new opera house, which was completed in that year. Built during an era in which every respectable town had an opera house of some kind, the Hostetler Opera House (as it was known after 1912) housed businesses on street level, with the auditorium upstairs. The auditorium served the community through the vaudeville era, evolving into a dance hall during the big band years. The auditorium never made a transition to movie theater, however, and gradually fell on hard times. It was used as a warehouse, then sat empty for years, even as businesses continued to occupy the ground floor.
Renovation changes everything
photo by Dave Bristow
Nebraska Life
Everyone agrees that the decision to renovate the Minden Opera House has been good for the town. Who could argue? Completed in 2000, the $2.7 million renovation resulted in a versatile facility of stunning beauty, a place for concerts, movies, plays, dances, weddings, meetings, art exhibits, even Husker football on the movie screen.
Though Vane Nied was not a particularly prominent citizen in Minden, his generosity led directly to the opera house renovation. Nied and his wife Alta led “a quiet, childless, and frugal life,” according to Jesse Adkins, their attorney. Alone after his wife’s death and without an heir, Nied willed his $300,000 estate to Minden for a community center.
Seeking advice from the Nebraska Community Foundation and the University of Nebraska at Kearney, local leaders set up a community foundation and tried to decide what to build.
“We got to thinking we ought to do something with the old opera house,” said Rob Raun, a former state agriculture director and University of Nebraska regent. “We said if we don’t do something with it soon it’s going to fall down, and it’d leave a hole on the north side of the Square.”
Though an engineer pronounced the building structurally sound, he warned the group that a renovation would be expensive. “He said you could take the money you’re going to spend,” Raun recalls, “take it out to the edge of town and build a whole new building from the ground up.” But that wouldn’t help the Square.
A place to tell your friends about
photo by Dave Bristow
Nebraska Life
The foundation initially projected a million-dollar renovation, but the project grew more ambitious as it went along. Rather than save money, Raun says, project leaders decided to try for “a place that everybody would be proud of, that people would come to see and would remember and tell their friends about.”
Which is exactly what they achieved. KayLyn McBride, a volunteer, was leading a tour when we arrived at the opera house. Visitors followed her from room to room, oo-ing and ah-ing over each new treasure: the art gallery, the broad stairway to the upper level, the grand foyer with its high ceiling and chandeliers, its elaborately carved bar, its pillars and art. The 276-seat theater is thoroughly modern, equipped with computerized lighting and surround sound, removable seating (the theater can also be set up with tables or with a dance floor), and a full-sized stage.
To provide more backstage area, the foundation also bought the adjoining building, whose upper story now serves as the theater’s “green room.” One floor down, Jim and Mary Yant still operate Daylight Donut, a popular morning destination that no one wanted to disturb.
Most memorable about the opera house is the theater’s ceiling, painted with a mural that portrays the landmarks and history of Minden. The mural’s figures are arranged around the edges and painted in perspective, so that you seem to be looking up at the Minden skyline. A flock of sandhill cranes fly overhead near a 24-karat inlaid golden sun.
“It is not a restoration, it’s a renovation,” McBride explained. After so many years, little of the original interior remained, so the foundation felt free to create a new interior that would be both functional and awe-inspiring.
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