Excellence Award Spotlight: Bent's Opera House
The rehabilitation of Bent’s Opera House is one of the League’s 2023 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award winners!
“It was an honor to work with Talis Equity on the restoration of Bent’s Opera House. At LeChase, we take great pride in projects that have a positive impact within their communities, and this historic restoration has given new life to an important cornerstone of Medina’s downtown business district,” said Jeff Panza, Regional Operations Manager, LeChase Construction Services.
The front facade of Bent’s Opera House before (left) and after (right) rehabilitation. Bent’s sits on a prominent corner of Main Street in downtown Medina, NY. After photo by Gene Avallone.
Built over 150 years ago, Bent's Opera House opened on February 28, 1865 with three storefronts on the first floor, offices on the second level, and an ornate performance space on the third floor. In its heyday, that performance space hosted speakers like Frederick Douglass and entertainers like Buffalo Bill Cody. After the theater closed, the building served the community in a variety of ways until the 1990s. Bent’s is an anchor building in the Village of Medina’s Main Street Historic District, designated at the local, state and national levels. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. By 2010, the performance space had not been used for decades and the building was fully vacant and in imminent danger of collapsing. In 2016, local developer Roger Hungerford’s Talis Equity purchased the property from the nonprofit Orleans Renaissance Group Inc. Hungerford, who had grown up in Medina, had a vision to give Bent's new life. They collaborated with LeChase Construction Services and Kideney Architects to rehabilitate the historic building into a modern destination. Today, the facility includes an upscale, farm-to-table restaurant and bar, a boutique hotel with 10 uniquely themed rooms, and a beautifully restored theater for private and public gatherings.
Bent’s Opera House was included on the League’s 2012-2013 Seven to Save list, highlighting its statewide importance and the risk it was facing. The League later awarded the Orleans Renaissance Group an Endangered Properties Intervention Program loan to stabilize the front facade before it fully collapsed. When Bent’s was included on the 2012 Seven to Save list, it was a representative example of a common building type — with so many vacant or underutilized opera houses found in New York’s small cities and villages, finding solutions for the successful reuse of Bent’s could serve as a statewide model. And indeed, thanks to its impeccable rehabilitation, Bent’s Opera House is an example similar projects can look to for inspiration.
The rehabilitation of Bent’s Opera House was funded in part through New York State and Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits. The project team included Talis Equity, LeChase Construction Services, and Kideney Architects.