Built in 1864 by Don C. Bent, Bent's Opera House served as the social center of the village and surrounding area until the early 20th century. By that time the third-floor opera house had been abandoned, while the second floor remained home to a fraternal organization until the 1970s and the first floor housed various commercial enterprises until 2009. It is one of the oldest surviving opera houses in the nation, built at the height of the Civil War and the Lincoln presidency. Constructed of Medina sandstone, it shares a material heritage with Buckingham Palace in London, the H.H. Richardson Towers, St. Louis RC Church and St. Paul's Cathedral in Buffalo, the George Washington and Brooklyn Bridges in New York, and many other notable works in Medina, western New York, and beyond. Through a charitable donation by Bank of America, the building is now owned by the Orleans Renaissance Group, Inc., a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization founded in 1997 and dedicated to cultural renewal and preservation in the surrounding area. The group's twofold vision is to stabilize, renovate, and restore the building in a historically sensitive manner and to reuse it as a viable, multipurpose 21st-century commercial, entertainment, and culinary destination year-round, while also keeping it flexible enough to serve multiple community needs. Each floor contains approximately 6,000 square feet, and the project's initial phases require studies to determine its scope and cost; until then, the first and second floors will be leased to an appropriate commercial enterprise.
