Looking at Stonington today, it’s hard to imagine the town once had a population of 5,000. Stonington’s many granite quarries gave the town its name and drew skilled workers and their families from all over Europe, outnumbering the fishermen and theirs.
Those granite workers needed recreation, and in 1893, amid the bars and brothels, hotels and rooming houses, Charles B. Russ built a dance hall. Within two years its success led to expansion and addition of a tower and balconies.
By the turn of the 20th century the building had become an opera house that seated over 1,000 and drew national touring productions. In 1910 it burned down and by the time the Opera House was rebuilt two years later, demand for granite had declined and with it much of Stonington’s population. The new Opera House was scaled down to seat only 250 for movies, theatrical productions, graduations and recitals, using folding chairs that could be removed for basketball games and dances.
In 1918, the Opera House began to screen silent movies. The upright piano used to accompany those films still sits in the hall. “Talkies” made it to Stonington in the 1930s, and by the 1940s, the wooden backed leather upholstered seats with elegant repousée metal sides on the aisle — the same ones used today — were bolted to the floor. They remained that way until the 1960s when they were removed to provide space for roller-skating.
The Opera House changed hands in 1979 when long-time summer resident and antiques dealer Michael Connors bought it. In 1992, Connors offered movies all summer long, after which he put the Opera House on the market where it stayed until 1998, when Judith Jerome and Linda Nelson, visiting Deer Isle on the advice of Carol Estey, who had summered there as a child. They saw the Opera House and recognized its potential, talked it over and decided it was something they thought they could do. But Nelson said, “We wouldn’t have bought it if the Selectmen hadn’t supported us.” Nelson, Jerome, and Estey went to the selectmen, told them they were interested in buying the Opera House, and asked what they wanted for their downtown. The selectmen said they wanted to have it open for the good of the town. They backed the women, and that’s exactly what they got — and then some.