Not long after the Greater Litchfield Opera House Association took
possession of the century-old building, the organization’s chairwoman,
Darlene Kotelnicki, announced plans to film renovation work and compile
it into a kind of “This Old Opera House” production for cable television.

The way things have gone in recent weeks, Kotelnicki may want to
reconsider the title of that television show. Something like “C.S.I.
Opera House” might be more appropriate. No crimes have been committed,
but there certainly has been plenty of architectural forensics going on.

“You won’t believe what we’ve all found,” Kotelnicki said Tuesday
morning as she and other volunteers prepared to lead architect Richard
Engan on a tour through the building. “It’s exciting.”

As volunteers deconstruct the building’s interior, among the more
interesting discoveries since January:

— The Opera House originally had two staircases
leading up to the balcony. It was long thought that the lone existing
stairway leading to the balcony was the original, but remnants of beams
uncovered during deconstruction led to further investigation — and
interviews with older Litchfield residents — which seems to confirm the
existence of the two stairways. They likely were replaced about 1935
when the building received an extensive remodel.

— A sloping floor, which created better sight lines for audiences
attending Opera House productions in the early 1900s, sat on ledger
block, which was part of the building’s foundation. Removal of drywall
in the basement led to the ledger block’s discovery, which at first
frightened some volunteers, who were unsure what it was.

— Construction of the side balcony, which was about nine feet wide and
ran on the north and south sides of the Opera House, remains a bit of a
mystery. Footprints for the beams that supported the balcony were found
after all the carpeting was removed from the main floor, but no one has
found yet evidence of how the balcony was attached to the walls of the
Opera House.

— There have been plenty of other interesting discoveries, which were
not so much mysteries or surprises as pleasant finds. Two of three
original light fixtures that adorned the front of the Opera House in its
early days were found in the basement. Music sheets, some instruments
and other memorabilia from the long-defunct community band were
uncovered in a back storage room.

“Every single day you find something new and you go home and try to put
the pieces together,” said Butch Schulte, a GLOHA board member and
leader of the interior deconstruction. “We’ve uncovered so much
contradictory stuff.”

For now, volunteers continue their steady work of removing much of the
interior structure of the building, which has undergone numerous changes
since it was built in 1900. When the days of touring acting troupes
passed, city leaders made the Opera House more of a multi-use facility.
A basement was dug and concrete poured in the mid-1930s, which added a
kitchen and additional storage and meeting space. An interior shell for
City Hall offices was built on the main floor and a false ceiling was
installed to save on heating costs in the 1960s.

Volunteers now are removing all of that renovation work to return the
building to its original interior — cleaned to the bare walls. Half of
the false ceiling has been removed, and only the framing of the main
floor offices remains.

It has been through the removal of walls and other add-ons that some of
the most interesting discoveries have been made.

Take, for instance, the ledger block. Long covered by an interior wall,
the field-stone foundation was exposed during the early days of
deconstruction. At first, Kotelnicki said, she and other volunteers were
horrified by their discovery, as they thought the foundation was
crumbling. But as they studied the slope of the ledge, they realized it
was the base upon which the Opera House’s floor was built — a theory
confirmed by Engan and others.

In their research of records and old newspaper clippings about the
building, Kotelnicki said, GLOHA members kept running across comments
about the Opera House’s “spacious lobby.” Anyone standing in the
building until recently would have wondered how that description could
have been used.

But then Schulte discovered two heavy timbers on opposite sides of the
base of the balcony that led to another revelation — the existing,
single stairway is not the original. What Schulte uncovered, combined
with interviews of a couple of elderly residents indicates that prior to
1935 the Opera House had two stairways, angling from the main floor up
to the balcony.

Schulte and Kotelnicki are convinced these are not the last of their
discoveries.

“The thing is, it’s addictive,” Schulte said. “You find one thing and it
leads to something else. You wonder, ‘Why is this? Why is that?’ You
want to find the answers.”