CENTRAL TEXAS

Reborn dance hall revives Schulenburg's past, may secure its future

Town's descendent pours heart - and money - into 115-year-old 'jewel of downtown revitalization.'

By Michael Corcoran
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, August 02, 2009

SCHULENBURG — In the past two months, 80-year-old Frank Tilicek has developed a new favorite part of his weekend routine. About 9:30 p.m., he drives up Main Street, once a desolate row of empty storefronts, and finds the street filled with parked cars and clumps of folks gathered on the sidewalk outside the newly refurbished Sengelmann Hall. Sometimes Tilicek pulls over to watch the shadows of dancers in the upstairs windows.

"Sengelmann was the hub of Schulenburg," Tilicek said of the dance hall/restaurant/saloon, built in 1894, which had been dormant for more than 60 years. "It's almost like a dream to see it come alive again."

The dream began as a vision in the head of 37-year-old Houston artist Dana Harper, a dance hall enthusiast who bought the Sengelmann Hall building 11 years ago and says he poured about $1 million into the renovation. "I'd envision my ancestors dancing," he said, referring to relatives who helped found Schulenburg in the mid-19th century. "That gave me a tremendous amount of inspiration and willpower."

At the grand reopening June 5, a capacity crowd of 400, spanning several generations, danced to Junior Brown. It was a "surreal" event to Harper, the great-great-grandson of oil tycoon Hugh Roy Cullen. "I had been looking at that empty dance hall for 11 years, and to see so many people there, dancing and having a great time, it felt like Sengelmann had never closed."

Known mainly for the Stanzel Model Aircraft Museum, the haunted Von Minden Hotel and a string of Painted Churches, the ornately decorated Czech Catholic chapels prevalent in Fayette County, this once-bustling town of 2,700 halfway between San Antonio and Houston is starting to get a spring back in its step, one country shuffle at a time.

Schulenburg Chamber of Commerce director Mike Stroup called the reopening of Sengelmann Hall "the jewel of our downtown revitalization." A polka museum is set to open soon three doors down.

Such nationally known acts as BeauSoleil, Billy Joe Shaver, Marcia Ball and Asleep At the Wheel are putting Schulenburg on their itineraries. And weekenders from Houston, Austin and surrounding communities are making Sengelmann a road trip destination.

Some come for the downstairs restaurant, which serves authentic Czech and German food. Others come to dance upstairs on the longleaf pine floors where Adolph and the Goldchain Bohemians used to pack the place with polka dancers in the '30s.

Most come to do both.

"When I-10 was built in 1970, downtown Schulenburg started drying up," said Tilicek, whose great-grandfather Charles Sengelmann was one of two brothers from Germany who founded the hall. Tilicek moved his family's restaurant, Frank's, from downtown, where it opened in 1929, to near the freeway exit ramp in 1971. "Before the interstate, you had to drive right down Main to get from San Antonio to Houston. Business was thriving downtown."

It was on the yawning stretch of highway that bypasses Schulenburg that Harper finally decided to go ahead and sink a big portion of his personal wealth into Sengelmann.

In early 2007, Harper and his Czech-born wife, Hana Hillerova Harper (a noted visual artist who lectured in art history at the University of Texas from 2004 to 2006), were driving down the interstate, noticing that every town looked like the same corporate cultural wasteland. "There was no character," Harper said. "What was even more depressing was that my family investments paid for a lot of those strip malls to be built. I had contributed to the demise of small-town Texas, and, perhaps subconsciously, I wanted to make amends."

When Harper began his work restoring Sengelmann with Houston architects Stern and Bucek, he was viewed by some townsfolk as an outsider, a rich kid from Houston building a playhouse on Main.

"There were some naysayers for sure," Stroup said. "Some folks are suspicious of any kind of change."

But it came to be known over time that Harper's roots in Schulenburg are deep and his intention to re-create the town's cultural center was sincere. His great-great-grandmother Lillian Cranz was a member of one of Schulenburg's founding families. She married Roy Cullen in 1902, and her family lent Cullen money to get his oil exploration business off the ground. Or, rather, into the ground.

At the time of his death in 1957, Cullen, "the King of the Wildcatters," was one of the richest men in the world, having amassed more than $300 million. But he was also a noted philanthropist who ran about 90 percent of his fortune through the Cullen Foundation, building hospitals and halls on the campus of the University of Houston.

"This isn't a hobby," said Harper, who had to pull money from family investments to fund Sengelmann. "It's a big investment that needs to work." The dance hall, open Friday through Sunday, has been drawing 200 to 400 folks a night, while the restaurant has approached capacity on occasion, though business has been slow at times. "I'm happy with the business so far," Harper said, noting that summer is traditionally the down time for restaurants.

"To tell you the truth, I didn't know what to expect when Sengelmann Hall reopened," Harper said. "Would the locals support it? Would we draw folks from Houston and Austin and San Antonio? I had no idea."

Harper said some of the old-timers had suffered "cultural amnesia," putting the memories of Sengelmann Hall away because they didn't want to think about what they lost. After the hall closed at the start of World War II, it had been a Western Auto location for decades. The upstairs dance hall was used for storage. "The town forgot about Sengelmann Hall," he said. But after the grand reopening, the memories came gushing back.

Among all those who thanked Harper for giving them back a piece of the past, he recalled one man in particular. "He was well into his 80s, and he told me that when he was a kid, he'd come in with his dad for root beer, and when he stood on the foot rail, his chin would barely reach the bar. He had tears in his eyes when he was telling me about coming here with his father."

Though it surpassed early cost and time estimates, the project has been blessed from the beginning, Harper said, pointing to the hiring of chef Kenny Kopecky, a Schulenburg native of Czech heritage. The food at Sengelmann, which includes a mix of recipes from Kopecky and Hillerova Harper's mother in Prague (topinka, which is thick cut rye bread fried in duck fat, is an old family favorite), has been getting raves from customers from day one.

"When someone asks me where I found our chef, I say we stole him from the local Dairy Queen," Harper said with a laugh. "Which is true, but there's more to it than that." After high school, Kopecky went to culinary school in Houston and then worked at various fine dining establishments in Houston and Austin. A few years ago, he opened his own restaurant in Schulenburg, but the town couldn't support it, so he closed up and hired on as a Dairy Queen manager. Then he heard Harper was looking for a chef who specialized in Czech and German food.

"We see the food, as well as the music, as a way to pass on Czech and German traditions," said Harper, noting that instead of neon beer signs the restaurant entrance is framed by a 50-foot-long magnolia garland.

Sengelmann music booker Steve Dean, a noted Texas music and dance hall historian, brings polka bands to Sengelmann on Sunday afternoons, just like in the old days.

"I just love to see parents bringing their kids on Sundays, just as their parents or grandparents used to bring them," Harper said. "It's like we're hosting a mini-Czech and German festival every weekend."

On the Sundays when area churches host polka bands at picnic fundraisers, Sengelmann books Cajun acts, not wanting to compete.

About a month ago, Harper witnessed what he called "this project coming full circle."

A mother had brought her three daughters to the restaurant, and they were having a great time running around at the outside biergarten and up and down the stairs to the dance hall. At one point, they came in and ordered sodas, standing on the foot rails and resting their chins on the bar, just as the old man told Harper he had done more than 70 years ago.

"Those three girls, in their old age, are going to have memories of going to Sengelmann Hall with their mom when they were little," Harper said. "That's what this is all about. Where else would they have memories of growing up? Hanging out at a Whataburger?"

mcorcoran@statesman.com; 445-3652