Here's how Windber Borough renovated The Grand Ballroom at Windber Rec Park

In true Windber Spirit style, members of the community and beyond filled the remodeled Grand Ballroom at Windber Recreation Park on Sunday to celebrate its reopening with food, dancing and reconnection with friends.

Two years after securing a $1 million grant to renovate the historic circa 1900 dance hall at the park, Windber Borough held a ribbon-cutting and open house to present The Grand Ballroom to the community and offer its services as a new, year-round venue for weddings, conferences, birthday and graduation parties and other events.

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Windber Borough also took out a $300,000 loan and accepted donations of materials from Berwind Corp. and others to complete the $1.7 million project.

After the two-hour open house, at which the public could look around the nearly finished facility and enjoy a light meal, tables were moved away and people gathered on the ballroom’s 117-year-old dance floor to turn, twist and dance away at the first Oldies Record Hop of the year, sponsored by the Windber Area Visioning Experience (WAVE).

Community support helped project succeed

John Holden, president of Windber Borough council, said Sunday’s event was like many of life’s best experiences rolled into one.

“I feel like a proud papa. I mean, it’s wedding, it’s birthday, it’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s a relief, because it’s been a lot of work. We’re really happy to have it done.

“I’m proud of the people that contributed and the community support. There are a lot of hands that touched this project. We went with the Windber theme by trying to get as many Windber people (contractors) involved as we could. We wanted to make sure that, because of Windber pride in our community, we wanted to make sure that as many hands from Windber touched it (as possible).”

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Something old, something new

The Berwind Corp. built the Windber Recreation Park in the early 1900s as a recreational area for its employees and the Grand Ballroom was built in 1906. Berwind donated the park to the borough in 1975.

Much of the ballroom’s original features remain, like the wooden sprung dance floor, which is a “really unique” piece of the building’s history, said Tom Harley, an architect with UpStreet Architects of Johnstown who worked on the project.

“These were very common in 1906,” he said. “It’s a treasure for the community.”

The vaulted, exposed truss roof inside the ballroom is also original to 1906, Holden said, while a new exterior roof, front porch, exterior walls and siding were parts of the renovation.

“Berwind Corp. donated all the lumber for the project, so the interior lumber, all the exterior lumber, anything we needed to repair the structure, Berwind donated all the lumber,” he said.

The new work also included adding a heating and air conditioning system; restrooms; a bridal room; a catering kitchen, and access for guests with disabilities. The ballroom seats about 300 people, and a new outdoor patio on the back offers additional space. New lighting also was added indoors and outdoors.

“We still have exterior work to do (landscaping and painting the exterior of the building), but we wanted to get it open, get people in here and hopefully get some bookings,” Holden said. “We’re hoping that it will eventually pay for itself, and it’s going to help with economic development, bring people to the borough.

“Windber Recreation Park has been a part of the community (since the early 1900s). Generations of people have used the park for years and years, from the time we were kids to when we were adults. It’s an important asset to the community. Windber Recreation Park will draw people from all around to use the pool, we’ve got picnic pavilions (and hosts) graduation parties, birthdays, family reunions. Not many communities in Cambria, Somerset, Bedford or anywhere have this type of facility, so it’s a tremendous asset to the community.”

Event package information and consultations for The Grand Ballroom at Windber Recreation Park are available by contacting Lauren Smalley, the borough’s event coordinator, at 582-855-2615 or lsmalley@windberboro.com.

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WAVE resumes monthly dances

The borough has also agreed to allow WAVE to use The Grand Ballroom for its Oldies Record Hops for at least the next five years, Holden said.

WAVE has held about seven dances there each year since 2007, but recent circumstances such as COVID-19 and the ballroom renovations put those dances on hold until Sunday’s event, WAVE member Noretta Haydu said.

More dances are now scheduled to take place monthly from April through October. Haydu said the dances help to generate additional funds for the Windber Area Museum, WAVE and the Arcadia Theater.

“The place has just been completed so we’re starting this as a meet and greet today,” she said on Sunday. “We’re hoping people like it and will come back, and new and younger people, too. We have a good crowd that’s usually pretty faithful to us, and I see a lot of those faces today. We’re just hoping they like the place and enjoy coming back.”

This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Windber Borough PA opens Grand Ballroom as a wedding and event venue