City Opera House

In 1891 businessmen John Wilhelm, Anthony Bartak, Charles Wilhelm, and Frank Votruba hired architect William G. Robinson of Grand Rapids to design this Victorian business block with its second-floor opera house. In 1897 architect Fred E. Moore led a major interior renovation that included hand-painted designs by Burt Hall of Traverse City. The Evening Record praised its 421 electric lights and called it a "magnificent transformation" that seemed "like a gilded palace compared to the old hall." The City Opera House has hosted concerts, traveling plays, vaudeville shows, high school graduations, dinners, and balls. Butterfield Theaters leased and managed it from the early 1920s until it closed in 1930. Seldom used for fifty years, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In 1978 the City Opera House Heritage Committee began raising money to restore it. William Votruba, son of an original owner, and his wife, Gretchen, gave the Opera House to the City of Traverse City in 1980.