(upbeat music) -[Narrator] Coming up on Nebraska stories reviving the past through the art of restoration, (upbeat music) Saving the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Nebraska, (upbeat music) giving new life to the bells of first Plymouth, (upbeat music) and keeping the grand, grand.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) NARRATOR: Perhaps it's fitting that on a street named after the architect of Nebraska's unicameral system, Senator George Norris, sits a house designed by a man whose name is synonymous with modern architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Located in McCook, it is the first and only building in Nebraska designed by the famous architect.

It's over 100 years old, and known by the name of the couple who built it, Harvey and Elizabeth Sutton.

(bluegrass music) In the 1880s, Harvey Sutton was a musician in the Sells Brothers Circus Band.

The circus traveled the nation and made stops in Nebraska.

According to Sutton family history, Harvey left the band to live in Ainsworth, and married a local girl, Elizabeth Munson, in 1886.

He began a new career as a jeweler, and also formed the Sutton Band.

Harvey's band became so popular, it caught the attention of some McCook community members.

HARVE SUTTON IV: They recruited him from Ainsworth, got him down there to lead the band and build the jewelry store, and he lead the Burlington Band.

PATTY CORDELL: Which was a big deal on the Burlington Railroad.

He was also the head timekeeper.

What do you call that?

HARVE: Yeah, well, he was the head watchmaker for Burlington.

Anyway, that's where they had all their time-pieces serviced was in his store.

(bluegrass music) NARRATOR: The Suttons were prosperous, active community members, and in the early 1900s, they were considering home improvements.

STEPHANIE HURST: There was a friend of great-grandma's that had planned on building a Frank Lloyd Wright house, having him design her house, and then she changed her mind.

But great-grandma liked what she saw in the plans, and liked the designs, and so she decided that was what she wanted to do.

NARRATOR: In 1901, the Ladies Home Journal published a series of modern home plans by a groundbreaking American architect named Frank Lloyd Wright.

Wright was hailed for designing buildings that were in harmony with nature.

In 1905, the Suttons commissioned Wright to design their new home, and even though she only had a basic education, Elizabeth took on the task of corresponding with Wright.

STEPHANIE: Yes, she was educated, but when you read her letters, misspellings, her sentence structure, you know, things like that.

You can tell she just had the rudimentary education, that a girl would've had back in 18... whatever.

She knew what she wanted and she was gonna get it.

PATTY: And that's one of the reasons why we have the letters is because STEPHANIE: Exactly.

PATTY: What we think is she wrote her letters longhand in what she wanted to say, and then I think she recopied them to send, and cleaned up whatever needed to be fixed.

NARRATOR: The letters between Elizabeth and Frank Lloyd Wright provide a window into their relationship.

STEPHANIE: In the information when we were researching this... says apparently, in about September of 1907, Wright had the audacity to ask for payment for the work that had already been done by himself and his office.

The exorbitant fee was $300.

Granny Cricket was quick to respond.

And she said that a house on the ground, not on paper, and we're not spending more than $5,000.

That her husband is not writing a check for it, that they just have a hole in the ground, and he's disgusted with it.

NARRATOR: Elizabeth also took on the role of contractor.

Following Wright's build book, she ordered the building materials, hired all the subcontractors, and supervised their work.

Without consulting him, she made small modifications to Wright's designs.

And in 1908, construction on the Sutton house was complete.

PATTY: Great-Grandma did not follow his designs exactly as he designed.

He came to visit one time.

He always wore a cape, and according to my father, said that he came in and he took one look around and said, "It was an abomination of his work," and threw his cape over and left, and that was it.

NARRATOR: In the 1930s, a house fire destroyed a portion of the home.

HARVE: When the fire went through, it burned the beams off that held the porch up.

NARRATOR: Wright's trademark cantilevered porch wasn't the only loss.

HARVE: The house burned during prohibition.

As the whiskey bottles blew up in the attic, the tears really rolled.

(laughs) That was according to my aunt.

(laughs) NARRATOR: Elizabeth and Harvey lived in their home until their deaths in 1952.

Their home passed to their son, the grandfather of Harve, Patty, and Stephanie.

HARVE: That's where we all went for Christmas.

Uncles, aunts, cousins, we all stayed in the house.

NARRATOR: In 1960, the Sutton House was put up for sale and purchased by a local doctor, who turned it into a small hospital.

The doctor enclosed the property with a concrete fence, and installed several fish ponds.

When he retired, the Sutton House, now the shadow of Frank Lloyd Wright's vision, went up for sale where it sat on the market so long, the doctor considered demolishing it.

JANET KORELL: Don and Mary Poore bought the house from the doctor when it was a clinic.

NARRATOR: In 1978, at the 11th hour, the Sutton House was purchased by a McCook couple, Don and Mary Poore.

JANET: And it was all chopped up into all these little rooms, and all these little hallways, and had an operating room and an x-ray room.

And I'm not sure how many people would've had the vision at that point, to what this house had been and could be.

And Don and Mary stepped in, bought the house, and with their son, Tom, worked on the restoration for 10 years.

So I really think they need to be credited with saving the house.

NARRATOR: Though the Poores saved the house from demolition, and turned it back into a home, it was Janet and Van Korrell who restored it to Frank Lloyd Wright's vision.

JANET: When we came on board, there was another owner in between, it was never about us owning the house, or what we could do.

It was always about the house.

It's an important historical part of this community, and it needed to be saved and restored, and we were just fortunate enough to be able to do that.

NARRATOR: The Korrells bought the Sutton House in the early 1990s, but the inspiration to restore their home came several years later, while touring Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Chicago.

JANET: For me, certainly, it was like, this really is a bigger deal than maybe I even realized.

This house is really significant.

We also contracted with an architect back there whose name is John Thorpe, and he's an expert on Frank Lloyd Wright.

He came out to the house shortly after we got back, and looked over the project, and agreed to be our architect.

So we worked with the experts, because we wanted to do it right, correctly, right , (laughs) you know.

(piano music) NARRATOR: Construction began in May of 1999.

VAN KORELL: As far as the construction part of it, she was heavily involved in that, and I was at work most of the time.

JANET: His business was being totally renovated and built onto at the same time.

(laughs) Our life was construction.

We lived here as the house was restored.

All the people we used on the restoration were McCook people, McCook businesses, because we felt it was important to the community that we used local people, rather than bring people in for the restoration.

NARRATOR: The house was stripped down to the studs and rebuilt from the inside out.

7,200 feet of quarter sawn oak installed.

The stained glass windows based on the original designs remade, and the beams that held the cantilevered porch roof replaced.

JANET: This house had those big columns holding up the front porch roof after the fire in the '30s.

And so, this was all tarped off.

It was kinda like an unveiling, and they dropped the tarp off the cantilever, and it was like, that is awesome.

You know, it was just amazing to see that roof just hang there.

(piano music) VAN: The single most memorable moment for me would be when the restoration was complete.

(Janet laughs) The last nail was driven in September of 2001.

NARRATOR: The restoration's completing also brought some unexpected attention.

JANET: Some ladies were peering in the window.

They were up like this, peering in the dining room window.

And so, I just walked out the back door, and I walked around, and I said, "Can I help you?"

Oh, they about jumped out of their skin.

They said, "You mean you live here?"

And I said, "Yeah, really."

(laughs) So there's a lot of fun stories like that, and you meet a lot of neat people.

VAN: But I would say all in all, people are very respectful.

JANET: Yeah.

VAN: They respect your privacy.

NARRATOR: 100 years after Wright designed the Sutton House, it's still a home that works for a modern family.

VAN: Well, there are just so many unique features.

You're just surrounded by comfort, in my opinion.

There are so many places that you can rest in the evening, read, or whatever you wanna do.

You can go to a different location in the house every night for several nights, and you're never in the same spot.

So you don't get bored.

There's plenty of interesting things to appreciate, look at, understand.

JANET: It's just the whole philosophy he had about bringing the outside in, and living with the environment in and out.

It really is kind of an amazing way to live.

NARRATOR: After all their work to restore the Sutton House, the Korrells have taken steps to ensure its future.

VAN: We've made arrangements so that the house... in perpetuity, will be in its present form.

With this effort, we need to preserve this, and so that's pretty well taken care of.

JANET: I'm very grateful that we were able to do this, that Van got on board with my crazy ideas.

Yeah, I'm a very lucky person.

(uplifting music) (steady rock music) (carillon bell music) - [William] On a crisp Sunday morning, parishioners of First-Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, hustled to the iconic sounds of the church's 57 carillon bells, nestled away in the church's roughly 171-foot singing tower.

(mellow carillon music) But who makes the singing tower sing?

(door clicks) (buckle clicks) That would be this woman, Kathie Johnson, who at 74 years old still volunteers to climb the tower's roughly 100-step spiral staircase to play for regular services, weddings, concerts, and occasionally a funeral, and everything in between.

She even found ways to play during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(bells ringing) - During the pandemic year, I played every Saturday evening, and that got people outside.

They could sit and they called it "carillon in the car".

So people could sit in their cars, be socially distanced and listen to the carillon because it sounds for several miles out.

(orchestra plays Christmas music) - [William] First-Plymouth music director Tom Trenney says those concerts brought the congregation together during a difficult time.

♪ Joy to the World ♪ - I remember the first time our kids, and we came to to the concert, at the end of the concert, without any prompting, everybody just started honking their horns in celebration.

I remember tears streaming down my face after that because it felt like we were together.

- [William] For Kathie, the Church's carillon is much more than just an instrument.

It's where she first met First-Plymouth's previous carillon player and her future husband, the late Ray Johnson.

(choir singing) Kathie moved to Lincoln in 1968 to teach music in public schools.

During her first visit, she heard about a carillon concert being hosted at First-Plymouth, and having never seen a carillon before, the idea piqued her interest.

(choir singing) - Someone who's curious, I wanted to see what the carillon was like.

So I asked, can I see the instrument?

And they said, "Go on up, follow that couple up there that was going up the steps."

So I went up all the steps.

I was in spiked high heels.

I didn't know any better.

And he was very nice.

And he said, "Would you like to sit and watch?"

And I said, sure.

And his name was Ray Johnson.

And in the long run, he ended up being my husband.

(bells ringing) He taught me how to play the carillon.

We had a little carillon guild.

We practiced every week.

And then once a month, we had a little lesson where we all played for each other.

(car engine humming) - [William] That's why it was hard for Kathie when, for five months, the singing tower fell silent.

(bells ringing) After decades of regular use and constant exposure to the elements, time's toll on the bells was starting to show.

So, the decision was made to take the carillon apart, bring the bells down, and ship worn parts to be repaired or replaced.

Specifically, they went to the Verdin Bell Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, a family-owned operation in its sixth generation.

Company president Tim Verdin says the company was started by his great, great, great grandfather in 1842.

- There's about 160 carillons in the country, in the United States.

And we've probably, there's probably only a handful that we haven't worked on through the years.

- [William] It was while doing some routine maintenance on the church's practice carillon when Verdin says he noticed corrosions starting to set in.

- We used rigging equipment to lower the bells so that we were able to take apart part of the frame that hangs the bells.

At the same time, we also removed all the internal clappers, the parts that make the bells ring.

And we sent all that back to Cincinnati and we redesigned those clappers to, call it a modern standard.

And then once all that new equipment is built, we bring it back out here and install it back into the bells.

The part that actually rings the bell is called the clapper.

It hangs from a head piece inside the bell, and then the clapper hooks to the mechanical linkage that the carilloner plays.

So when they press the handle down on the keyboard, it pulls the clapper into the bell and rings it.

(loud deep ringing) - [William] And it was important that the carillon be handled with care.

In addition to being a complex instrument, the bells themselves are important to Lincoln's history.

(bells ringing in harmony) First installed in 1931 when the surrounding area was just farmland, the bells of First-Plymouth were purchased from a bell maker in White Chapel, England with donations from the community during the Great Depression.

(bells ringing) - With all the subscriptions and people who gave the bells, there's organizations, there's individuals.

(choir singing) The university, (indistinct), our church choirs, our Sunday school classes, and everybody chipped in throughout the community.

So we say the bells are the community's, and we just house them.

(bells ringing) - [William] With the bells returned and Kathie back at the wheel, the church-going experience feels whole again.

- I really do think they add something special in that they they help deliver the message the church is trying to send to the community, you know, that message of love and joy and beauty.

The fact that they're there and they spread that message in the surrounding area, I just think helps create the environment that the church wants to have here.

- I just think it's just so special, the music that's provided as you're walking up to the church is kind of the prelude for the message and the experience, and just the talent as we walk up to the church, and hear just the magic from God.

("Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" plays on carillon) - [William] As for Kathie, she's now in the middle of training her own protege, so when she gives up the reins, someone will be there to pick up where she leaves off.

However, she says she doesn't plan to give it up anytime soon.

(bells ringing) - Well, I'll be playing as long as I can make it up the steps.

That's the plan anyway (chuckles).

(carillon continues) ♪ MUSIC ♪ (Letters being organized) ♪ MUSIC ♪ ♪ MUSIC ♪ (Popcorn being popped) PROGRAM ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the Mercury Theater and star of these broadcasts, Orson Welles.

KENT BOUGHTON: John had called and said, "We're doing the War of the Worlds.

We're gonna do an old radio show on the stage of the Grand Theater.

I'm just waiting for the question and hoping in the back of my mind that he's gonna ask me to do Orson Wells.

JOHN LINCOLN: It's the only live show you'll want to see with your eyes closed.

BOUGHTON: We know now that in the early years of the 20th century, this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet, as mortal as his own.

LINCOLN: This is a way of paying back to the community- with an older style of art form.

ACTOR: I can make out a small beam of light against the mirror... LINCOLN: It's just a fun way to raise money for a beautiful theater, that I'm happy to be a volunteer at.

♪ MUSIC ♪ RAY EVANS: Opening day, May 7th, 1937, several dignitaries on stage, the largest happening in Grand Island at that time, the largest neon sign anywhere this side of Omaha and Wally Kemp was on stage that evening for opening day.

EVANS: Wally Kemp, everybody remembers him as Uncle Wally.

NORMAN HARRISON: He was a people person, had a smile on his face all the time.

EVANS: He said, if you're not going to have hoopla and bally-hoo, promoting an event, he said, don't even bother.

♪ MUSIC ♪ HARRISON: I was a doorman.

We had a movie while I was here called, The Sainted Sisters.

These sisters were gold diggers and they were after the money.

They put me in a bathing suit with a barrel around me, with suspenders on the barrel, and I had to walk down the street here advertising The Sainted Sisters.

There's a movie called, Getting Gerties Garter.

And we have a picture of two of his young employees running through the Grand Theater and you can see this girl's garter and the boy chasing behind her.

They would do little skits like The Milkman.

A fake cow out on the street and somebody on a milking stool milking this fake cow.

HARRISON: And it was all part of getting people here to see these movies.

It worked.

BOUGHTON: This was the place to be on Saturday in Grand Island.

We would line up all the way around the corner.

This Grand Theater was packed with kids.

♪ MUSIC ♪ BOUGHTON: In the 70s, the popularity of coming here wasn't as great.

We got VHS tapes, you know, you were able to watch movies at home, cable came along, everyone wanted to experience that-that new thing of sitting at home and watching a movie.

♪ MUSIC ♪ EVANS: It was a big empty spot.

It was like the smile of downtown had a tooth missing.

Several of us got together downtown and formed a non-profit group called, The Grand Foundation.

The owners of the theater wanted to give the building away for their tax purposes.

♪ MUSIC ♪ RAY EVANS: We've been able to raise money and turn this into the showplace again that it once was in 1937.

♪ MUSIC ♪ LINCOLN: It's got style.

You can look at this and it's just a beautiful thing to see.

BOUGHTON: You get a larger than life experience.

You've got this huge screen on a stage in front of you and you're sitting in these plush comfortable seats... MOVIE AUDIO: "Your world has sheltered one of my citizens..." BOUGHTON: ...and you've got that big movie sound around you.

LINCOLN: You know, after being-going to the little black boxes out at the malls, you know, to come in here and see this, it's beautiful.

There's something to look at while you're waiting for the movie.

LINCOLN: Everybody's getting together to help make this place better and keep it vital and working in town.

BOUGHTON: Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to ...

PERFORMANCE: Citizens of the nation, I shall not try to conceal the... Fire.

I have no definitive information.

Listen please.

Do you hear it?

BOUGHTON: This is Orson Wells, ladies and gentlemen out of character to assure you that The War of the Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be.

JOHN LINCOLN: What's better than keeping memories alive, you know?

That's why we do this.

BOUGHTON: You will be relieved I hope to learn that we didn't mean it.

And that both institutions are still open for business.... EVANS: The community is The Grand and The Grand is the community.

(Applause) ♪ MUSIC ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Watch more Nebraska stories on our website, Facebook and YouTube.

Nebraska Stories is funded in part by the Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation, and the Bill Harris and Mary Sue Hormel Harris Fund for the presentation of cultural programming.

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