Welcome to The Historic Millett
Opera House Foundation!
The Foundation is a 501(c)3.
Millett’s Opera House has a ghost! Millett’s Opera House Ghost is reported by both Austin Club team members and cleaning crews to provoke them on the third floor, particularly late at night after the guests and members have left. Jeanine Plumer, author of Haunted Austin, owner and very seriously hands on operator of Austin Ghost Tours has placed Millett’s Opera House on her list of haunted destinations. Her tours stop at the front steps of Millett’s Opera House where the tragic story is told of Priscilla, an actress who fell to her untimely death from a catwalk in the opera house one evening before she was to wed, and has haunted Millett’s Opera House ever since. Individuals who apply for membership at The Austin Club are warned about Priscilla the Ghost in the member application. Priscilla’s ghostly image appears in the Art Gallery Lobby dome.
Photo courtesy of The Austin Club
Located in the Main Lobby
From 1878 to 1897, full color theatrical posters announcing actors and performances were displayed in front of Millett’s Opera House. Charles Millett arranged for a gas jet street light to be constructed on the sidewalk just outside the opera house to illuminate the posters so pedestrians and horse drawn carriages passing by at night could see.
In 2015, a member of The Austin Club received a call from a resident of Fort Worth who had found these posters in his grandfather’s attic and wanted to give them to Millett’s Opera House. How and why his grandfather obtained the posters is not known.These are the only known Millett’s Opera House posters in existence today.
Photo courtesy of The Austin Club
First Floor Stairway
A.D. Greer, a celebrated artist who in time became a favorite artist of President Lyndon Baines Johnson and family, traded his paintings to The Austin Club in exchange for food, beverages and club membership, before his talent was discovered. After a fire in 1959 destroyed almost all of the furnishings of The Austin Club, Austin Club membership received a generous settlement from the insurance company and chose to redecorated the spaces at in 1960 in a Spanish Baroque and Italian Renaissance theme. Greer painted The Duke of Alba at the request of The Austin Club leadership around 1960.
The Duke of Alba is decidedly different from most of artist’s work, landscape paintings, for which the artist is acclaimed. A total of five A.D. Greer paintings in this unique Baroque style are displayed throughout Millett’s Opera House.
Photo courtesy of The Austin Club
The beautiful second floor ball room now called The Medallion Room has the original hardwood dance floor installed by Capital Knights of Columbus in 1911 over which a modern wooden dance floor more recently has been constructed giving dancers a much softer feel and more comfort. The ball room is use for rehearsals by competitive dancers as well as more traditional balls, dances, charitable and civic events accommodating up to 350 diners in comfort. Portable stages and a state of the art sound system enhance each performance.
The diversity of events to which the public is invited include 2019 Austin History Center Association Annual Angelina Eberly Luncheon Gala ‘The History of Theatre in Austin’ and 2019 Austin Gay Men’s Chorus with more than 100 members on stage performing ‘Coming Home’, each to a sell out crowd which broke records for fund raising.
Photo courtesy of The Austin Club
A ‘Thank You’ to Austin’s Finest.
Tragedy struck in 2018 when an arsonist set fire to the third floor of Millett’s Opera House, requiring more than $500,000.00 of work to restore the structures.But for the rapid response of City of Austin Firefighters, Millett’s Opera House’s mostly wooden beam structures might have been lost forever.
Grateful for the swift and very skilled response of the firefighters and police, The Austin Club hosted a party in honor of all the first responders. 32 members of the fire and police department attended. Curtis Fuelberg, President, The Austin Club awarded the teams a certificate of appreciation. Flaming beverages were offered to all. Firefighters and police officers on duty declined.
Charles Millett was appointed Austin’s first Fire Chief in 1866, campaigned tirelessly for city fire codes and fire safety both while fire chief and thereafter as a city alderman, a fact about which many firemen and police officers attending were unaware until the party.
Photo courtesy of The Austin Club
