BRATTLEBORO — “We were all aware of the history of the hurricane of 1938 and the Latchis Theatre, and yet we assumed that something like that could never happen today,” said Gail Nunziata, managing director for the Brattleboro Arts Initiative and the Latchis Corporation.
“But, of course, we were wrong,” she said.“Because it did happen to us.”
The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 swept Brattleboro off its feet the very day the grand opening of the Latchis Theatre was to have taken place.
One of the hallmarks of that storm was that it moved so quickly up the coast that it arrived without warning, making any kind of preparation or notification impossible. Conversely, when Tropical Storm Irene arrived on Aug. 28, it came without surprise.
But what was unexpected this time was the extent of flash flooding that accompanied Irene's high winds and heavy rains. The Latchis building was one of those most deeply affected in downtown Brattleboro.
“We're looking at least half a million dollars worth of damage. Flood insurance likely won't cover even half of it, but we're at the very beginnings of that process and are still hopeful,” said Nunziata.
Demetrius (Jim) Latchis was 7 years old when his family was preparing the grand opening of the theater that was created in memory of his grandfather, Demetrius P. Latchis. He doesn't remember the day the hurricane arrived.
“I was named for my grandfather, though he died when I was two in 1932. I have no memory of him. But the stories, there are plenty of stories about him,” he said with a smile as he chomped on his cigar.
According to his grandson, Demetrius Latchis came from a mountain village in Kastanitsa, Greece to Brattleboro in 1901. A majority of the Greeks whom he knew were immigrating to American cities to work in the shoe factories.
Demetrius had a different idea. His plan was to come to Vermont and sell fruits and vegetables from a push cart.
“Why are you going to Vermont, selling fruit to farmers?” his grandson said people asked him at the time. They thought it was like trying to sell ice cream to the Eskimos.”
A determined Demetrius arrived and rented a room in Hinsdale, N.H.
“He used to walk,” says Latchis, “and walk and walk.”
Later, Latchis said, “he was able to purchase a horse-drawn wagon, but he started out walking. His legs pretty much gave out on him when he turned 60, years later.”
Demetrius Latchis walked to Brattleboro from Hinsdale, with his push cart to purchase his goods directly off the trains. Another day, he would walk to Northfield, Mass., and still another day to Chesterfield, N.H., the toughest day of all because of the hills involved.
A few years later, he was able to bring his two eldest sons, Peter and Spiro, over from Greece.
It took many years, but eventually the family was able to purchase a home in Brattleboro which housed four boys, three girls, and their parents. The family was happy to be all together once more.
Latchis grew his business for 20 years until he had enough money to purchase the property at the corner of Flat and Main streets in 1921. He built his first theater behind the corner block, despite the fact that he had never even seen a moving picture. He then moved his fruit and vegetable business from the Park Building, which occupied the land where the Brattleboro Food Co-op is currently constructing, to his own block.
With the Latchis Fruits & Vegetables Shop and the theater doing well, Latchis opened a soda fountain, where he sold candy and made his own chocolates. Eventually, he moved that business to the corner of Elliot and Main streets. It was still in operation when Jim Latchis was in high school in the late 1940s.
Beverages from the soda fountain were “a much different thing than the soda that we drink today,” Latchis remembered. “They had far less sugar and you could add all kinds of flavors to them. They were a real hit with the teenagers,” he said.
Eventually, the family began to expand their theater and hotel businesses all over New England. Demetrius Latchis has been described as an affable man who was interested in public affairs and enjoyed the friendship of his family, who worked actively in his businesses. By the time of his death, he owned six theaters. By 1938, the family owned 14.
“We ran the theatre in the old Brattleboro Town Hall,” Latchis said. “We also owned a couple of theaters in Keene. The Colonial Theatre was originally built as a playhouse, but then the movie business started coming on strong.
“People didn't want to see plays anymore; they wanted film. My father and his brother Peter purchased it and showed movies there instead. They kept it as it was originally. I always marveled at what a wonderful condition it was in. They owned a second theatre in Keene, not 300 feet from the Colonial as well,” he said.
Silent films were popular right up until 1927, when the first “talkies” were shown, he said.
The most successful years for the Latchis family business followed the golden age of Hollywood.
In the 1930s, America was still recovering from the Great Depression. People were out of work and went to the movies as an inexpensive treat to forget their troubles for an hour or two. Tickets were inexpensive, a dime or 15 cents. Feel-good movies were always in vogue, and comedies.
After their father's death, Peter and Spiro Latchis decided to take down the buildings and replace them with what they called “a town within a town.”
The new hotel building would be art deco in design, and featured not only a hotel and several eateries, but also a brand new theater in honor of their father's legacy. It would be the largest theater in the tri-state area with seats for 1,200 people. The building would be fireproof, and the theatre and public areas would have an ancient Greek theme.
Peter and Spiro Latchis had previously been pleased with the work of an artist, Louis Jambor, who painted their father's portrait. They asked him to come to Brattleboro from New York City to paint the interior of the theater.
A native of Hungary, born in 1884, Jambor gave an interview in which he described running away from home at a tender age to enroll in the Academy of Art in Budapest. His father had wanted him to be an architect. He then studied in Munich and Dusseldorf in Germany. From there, after earning many prizes for his artwork, Jambor returned to Budapest.
By 1922, his work well received, he came to visit the United States out of “extreme exhaustion.”
His idea was to stay for three months to rest, but he found enough opportunities that he decided to remain in the country.
His murals were found in hotels and churches of the day. Jambor painted 26 murals alone at the Hotel New Yorker. He painted the proscenium in the Atlantic City auditorium and in churches from Buffalo, N.Y., to Rhode Island, to Connecticut.
He went on to paint the illustrations for the 1947 edition of the novel Little Women.
Today, Jambor's artwork fetches high prices at auction.
Jambor liked that the Latchis brothers wanted to build the theater as much for beauty as they did for business. He chose visual motifs inspired by two Greek myths, Apollo on one side of the theater and Baccus on the other.
The Brattleboro Daily Reformer was filled with three pages of descriptions of the interior of the theater and its accompanying lobby and public rooms. For months, Jambor worked quietly and alone inside the theater, climbing up and down the many ladders he needed to paint the ceiling and the high walls. He mixed beeswax with the paint to give it a watercolored look and extra staying power.
It is unknown how much damage to the building arose from the Hurricane in 1938, but the grand opening was rescheduled and held 14 days later.
The theater had the first runs of The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, and later Casablanca and The Sound of Music. Those were not the films that interested Jim Latchis.
“There was too much Bette Davis there for me, so I went to the Town Hall to see the westerns,” he said with a chuckle.
By the 1950s, television became the thing to watch and the movie theaters suffered. Some wondered if the age of film was gone. Competition among theaters was high.
“We had a theater in Claremont, N.H., that was the biggest one we owned. That one had tough times. A competitor moved in right next door. Professional thugs came in and were hired to destroy it. We all thought that it was paid for by the competitors. It was wrecked and had to be torn down after that,” said Latchis.
Eventually, it became too expensive to show one movie in a theater. Multiplexes became the way to bring more people to more movies. Jim's son Spiro joined him in running the family business and did the renovations to add more theaters to the building, which brought the public back to the Latchis in a big way.
“I've watched the movie business all of my life. It was really enjoyable in those early days. We had big bands, vaudeville acts on the stage. Rudolf Serkin played a concert every year and we packed the house with his fans,” said Latchis.
Seventy-three years after the delayed opening of the theatre due to weather, the Latchis is set to reopen again this Friday.
“We can't thank our local subcontractors enough,” says Nunziata. “They've all done a wonderful job. There is still much to do, but we are so excited to reopen.”
Nunziata said the hotel was closed the whole month of September and half of October, missing the fall foliage wave of tourism entirely, “a big hit.”
“But beyond the financial issues, it was a morale hit too,” she said. “We just love to have the hotel bustling and full of people.”