{"id":23815,"date":"2025-01-29T01:01:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T08:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-creative-district-moves-forward-with-plans-to-acquire-opera-house\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:43:09","slug":"mancos-creative-district-moves-forward-with-plans-to-acquire-opera-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-creative-district-moves-forward-with-plans-to-acquire-opera-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos Creative District moves forward with plans to acquire opera house"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Mancos Opera House. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

In the next year or so, the Mancos Creative District plans to raise enough money to purchase the historic opera house in downtown Mancos.<\/p>\n

The district has long been interested in the space, and in using it in \u201ccreative ways, as a community asset,\u201d said Chelsea Lunders, the executive director of the Mancos Creative District.<\/p>\n

Plus, it aligns with its goals.<\/p>\n

The whole purpose of the creative district, which is in its 10th year, is to promote creative industries in the Mancos Valley and the vibrancy of its economy, Lunders said.<\/p>\n

So at the end of 2024, the creative district\u2019s board of directors voted in favor of the long-term stewardship of the opera house, and plans to continue to rehabilitate it.<\/p>\n

The transaction is still in its infancy.<\/p>\n

No numbers are public yet, and the couple that owns it now \u201chas been really supportive\u201d and worked with the district, sans deadlines, to make this happen, Lunders said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely not your normal real estate transaction,\u201d said Philip Walters, who owns the opera house with his wife, Linda.<\/p>\n

As it stands, the small nonprofit that is the creative district doesn\u2019t have the means, financially, to make the purchase, but it\u2019s launching a capital campaign soon to change that.<\/p>\n

Aside from raising money to buy the building, their first order of business will be to renovate a part of the building in its lower east side they call the \u201cEast Bay.\u201d<\/p>\n

At present, that space has no HVAC, plumbing or electrical.<\/p>\n

\"The
The \u201cEast Bay\u201d of the Mancos Opera House on Monday, Jan. 20. This is the area the Mancos Creative District intends to renovate first. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another
Another view of the \u201cEast Bay\u201d inside the Mancos Opera House. In 1910, this area of the building was home to The Mancos Meat & Grocery Co. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Renovating that space is tactical, as it\u2019s a promising rental opportunity, likely for something retail, which will be a revenue source to support the rest of the project, Lunders said.<\/p>\n

Plus, it\u2019ll bring another business to town.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope to get a lot of support from foundations in the state and donors for that initial phase,\u201d said Lunders. \u201cAfter that, we\u2019ll start to think about the fun stuff like, how are we going to remodel the bar, and what are we going to do upstairs to the theater.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philip and Linda Walters, the couple who owns the opera house now, got the opera house to where it\u2019s at now, which is a place of sound, stable mechanics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just two people in a long line of caretakers,\u201d said Philip. \u201cWe\u2019ve accomplished what we wanted to. There\u2019s still some infrastructure work with the theater, but it\u2019s at point where the decision on how to do those things ought to be made by whoever will be its long-term operator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is something Philip and Linda never intended to be.<\/p>\n

They had long been involved with the opera house, and remembered how it was nearly condemned in 2002 because the roof and east wall were in danger of collapsing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat got everybody\u2019s attention,\u201d Philip said.<\/p>\n

Since it\u2019s a historic place, it was eligible for emergency funding from History Colorado. A $250,000 grant saved it from condemnation \u2013 and collapsing \u2013 but the building was a long way from being sound.<\/p>\n

So the VFW, who had owned it for many years, put it up for sale in 2017 since the constant repairs were distracting them from their core mission of serving veterans, Philip said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Linda, being the brave soul she is, said let\u2019s just buy it and get it off the market,\u201d Philip said.<\/p>\n

They figured they\u2019d be a \u201cbridge buyer,\u201d and soon sell it to a nonprofit, so they agreed to buy the place on Friday, Oct. 13, 2017, for $195,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was probably about $400,000 more than it was worth at the time,\u201d Philip said.<\/p>\n

But they bought it anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe like the community, and we liked the fact that the building was once a hub of the community and we wanted it to be that once again,\u201d said Linda. \u201cBesides, we like a challenge occasionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we loved the building,\u201d Philip said.<\/p>\n

Linda remembered living in Texas, in cities like Houston and Austin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey really were not \u2013 especially Houston \u2013 into preserving a lot of things. They bulldozed and built something else; a shiny, new thing,\u201d Linda said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just didn\u2019t like that. We like the fact that people care about the originals here.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that in mind, they took care to preserve the unique, historic character of the place as they renovated it, and ended up being more involved with the place than a traditional \u201cbridge buyer\u201d might be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more we looked at building and state it was in, we realized it would probably just drag a nonprofit down,\u201d Philip said. \u201cThey\u2019d be stuck in same loop VFW had been in, not ever making enough money to get out of cycle and continuing to put Band-Aids on.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said their contribution, then, \u201cneeded to be to rip all the Band-Aids off and get down to the nitty-gritty, not pretty stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of what we did isn\u2019t visible,\u201d Philip said.<\/p>\n

One of the first things they did was \u201cgut it,\u201d Linda said.<\/p>\n

They replaced all the plumbing in the building, added an elevator, new bathrooms, a sprinkler system, fire alarms, fire suppression and an HVAC system.<\/p>\n

They did a majority of the work themselves; for the big undertakings, they hired someone.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously building an elevator hoist way is not a DIY project,\u201d Philip said.<\/p>\n

But rebuilding the street fa\u00e7ade, for example, was.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, the building was a bar, so its storefront was \u201cbricked up\u201d with narrow windows and uninviting steel doors, which aligned with that era\u2019s \u201cconcept of bars being dark places with little light,\u201d Philip said.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Mancos Opera House, 136 W. Grand Ave., when it was \u201cbricked up.\u201d (Journal file photo)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

That way, passersby couldn\u2019t look in and see who was at the bar drinking, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr smoking,\u201d Linda added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had all the glamour of a warehouse, really,\u201d Philip said.<\/p>\n

To return the storefront to its original glory, Philip \u2013 with the help of a contractor called Martin Built Homes \u2013 repurposed some of the building\u2019s floorboards, which were made up of ponderosa pine from 1910 and \u201ca lot more stable than stuff nowadays\u201d to make decorative trim.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t run to a hardware store and buy that kind of trim, you have to make it,\u201d Philip said. \u201cIt\u2019s built more like furniture.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple also talked about renovations in \u201cthe green room,\u201d which was originally built as an apartment in the Depression era and, over time, became a space for artists performing in the theater to hang out.<\/p>\n

Linda said they found a wadded-up newspaper behind some plaster in the wall dated Nov. 8, 1932, with the headline \u201cRoosevelt Wins!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was his first election,\u201d she said of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.<\/p>\n

In rebuilding that room, they made sure to salvage some of graffiti that artists from long ago wrote on the walls.<\/p>\n

Some writing was from Diane Hall, who\u2019s better known by her film name, Diane Keaton. In the summer of 1965, she lived in that space during her \u201cLittle Mary Sunshine\u201d era.<\/p>\n

\"The
The cast of \u201cLittle Mary Sunshine,\u201d circa 1965, in the Mancos Opera House. Diane Hall (aka Diane Keaton) is in the center of the photo, in a white headdress. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Some
Some of the graffiti that artists who\u2019ve performed at the Mancos Opera House left on the walls of the green room. Notice Diane Hall\u2019s name in capital letters. (Cameryn Cass\/The Jourrnal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Philip said that throughout the renovations and the years, he\u2019s spent a lot of time \u201cgrabbing a chair and sitting somewhere to try and understand what she (the opera house) needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like letting light in from the north, as was initially intended, since \u201csome of the original light concepts of light are really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to live in the space, he said, and connect with the spirit of everyone who\u2019s worked on the place, performed there, or otherwise loved it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll inform a lot of decisions,\u201d Philip said. \u201cBefore you jump in and start spending money renovating things, get to know the building and how people interact with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that he and Linda have had conversations with the creative district, and that their goals and intentions align, specifically when it comes to the idea that the space is, first and foremost, for the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say \u2018she\u2019 because I\u2019ve worked with the building long enough that to me, she\u2019s a she. She needs to be a community asset,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to be a community hub, it needs a staff of more than two,\u201d Linda said.<\/p>\n

And so that\u2019s why, roughly a year ago now, the couple approached the creative district and asked if they\u2019d be interested in buying the opera house.<\/p>\n

Lunders said the creative district took time and did their \u201cdue diligence\u201d to make sure the purchase made sense for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a year to really think it through,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

They hired a consultant, Ayers Associates, to look at things like \u201cremaining rehab costs, potential uses of space, different ways to generate revenue to support its sustainability, and its potential social and economic value to the region,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Already, creative industries are critical to the local economy, Lunders said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to leverage the space to expand creative industries, foster entrepreneurship, boost tourism, promote skill and creative workforce development, and enhance art education,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The opera house will still be available to rent out for events.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt already has this great momentum of use, and the Walters have been great about allowing that and fostering that,\u201d Lunders said.<\/p>\n

Cult movies stream there once a month. It\u2019s where high school seniors have their prom, and where a fundraiser of \u201ctrue burlesque, down to the panties and pasties\u201d happened last year, Philip said.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Mancos Opera House\u2019s theater space, still set up with chairs from a cult movie showing. \u201cThe essence of the space is what people bring to it during an event,\u201d Philip Walters, the owner of the opera house, said. (Cameryn Cass\/The Jourrnal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Under the creative district\u2019s oversight, there\u2019s this added goal that over time it will become \u201ca draw for all kinds of acts and a regional hub for the arts and creativity here in the Southwest,\u201d Lunders said.<\/p>\n

They also have an emphasis \u201con supporting children and youth,\u201d so the opera house can be a space where younger generations in our community can grow up, Lunders said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe excitement is really in seeing how everything that the opera house has been comes together and ushers us into what it will become, which is a new lifetime of a building that sits right there on the corner of our downtown,\u201d Lunders said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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