Courier Article - If walls could talk
By JOHN MOLSEED, john.molseed@wcfcourier.com
WATERLOO --- In Chuck Orr's workshop and antiques storeroom, the most recognizable Waterloo artifact there is the room itself.
What was once the hub of Waterloo night life is now the quiet workspace and storage area downstairs from the apartment in the Stephens Building that Orr and his wife call home.
The remnants of the former Brown Derby are easy to spot. A stage against the far wall from the entrance still exists. Much of the facade and the tin ceiling are intact, but the run-down dance and dining hall is a far cry from its former glory.
"This is still better than it was," Chuck Orr said. Before he and his wife, Kathy, renovated areas on the second and third floors of 616 1/2 Sycamore St. in downtown Waterloo into living space, the former Brown Derby sat empty for decades.
The Brown Derby was the Elks Lodge meeting room and later became the Sultana Club before becoming the Brown Derby in the 1940s through 1963. The club was a bottle club in the post-Prohibition era. In the 1940s, the Derby opened and closed under various owners.
The happening place was occasionally a little too wild for city leaders. In April 1944, owner Edna Carney was arrested and fined for operating a public dance on a Sunday in violation of city ordinance. Carney was fined $100 for the infraction.
Before the couple bought the building in 1995 and remodeled the top floor and part of the second floor into living space, when they first walked into what was the Brown Derby, the room had no real entrance, no electricity and the couple had no idea what they would find.
"We had no clue what was up here," Kathy Orr said. "It was dark, it was peeling, it was just the way they left it."
"It was trashed," Chuck Orr said. "Full of wood, just basically junk."
The couple have since replaced the roof and stabilized the building and the old hall, but they have done little to improve or renovate it. Money is the biggest obstacle, Chuck Orr said, despite grant money and tax credits that are available for historic building renovations.
"It's hard to get money and that kind of support into a small project," he said.
Hard work doesn't deter Orr from historic renovation projects. He partnered with Jim Walsh to renovate the Fowler building --- home to the Screaming Eagle Bar and Grill and Silos and Smokestacks --- and the Haffa building. With that work done and facing the solo cost of a renovation project, Orr is in no hurry to take up another project soon.
Enough of the tin ceiling is still in place to refurbish, as is the maple floor. The other ornate designs in the room can be restored or replicated, Orr said.
"There's enough of the accents and the plaster treatments, we can take those and make molds for the areas that are missing or worn down," he said.
Some of the paintings on the wall from the later days of the Derby still exist.
One entire corner of the ballroom has been lost because of enforcement of fire code that required the couple to install a second stairway in the building. A corner of wall treatments and accents were destroyed. Two oak pocket doors that belong in the ballroom have disappeared since they bought the property.
If the area is remodeled, Orr said, he is uncertain how the space would be used. Possibilities Orr listed include a ceramics studio, a studio for artists, even a small theater venue. The couple would also have to figure out how to combine a public venue with their living quarters. For now, he and his wife are the only ones who get to regularly glimpse this piece of downtown Waterloo's past.
"Sometimes, we wish the walls could talk," joked Kathy Orr, adding that some of the colorful history may be a bit too much to hear. "I'm not sure if we'd really want to hear everything they have to say."