Milwaukee’s Antlers Hotel Had More Stars Than Heaven

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Photo Via Milwaukee County Historical Society

Hotel Antlers

When the wrecking balls hit the side of the Antlers hotel in 1981, a silent requiem marked years of entertainment on the site going back to 1924. Beginning with the Arcadia ballroom, William Shatner, Rosemary Clooney, Betty White, Jimi Hendrix, Duke Ellington and Eric Clapton were among the hundreds of stage, concert, motion picture and television stars who played the Swan theater, the Scene rock nightclub, and the Centre Stage dinner theater. The Milwaukee Redevelopment Authority bought the property in 1978 to make way for part of the proposed Grand Avenue retail center. Just before demolition, many of the Antlers’ 225 permanent residents were moved to the nearby Belmont and Wisconsin hotels. Others just disappeared into history.  

Opened in 1924, the city’s second largest hotel was a gentlemen's paradise that offered eleven floors of rooms for $2 a day. Long-term residents were often sailors, businessmen and employees from nearby stores and restaurants. The “stag” hotel welcomed gay men to the upscale Mural Bar, the Knotty Pine tavern, and other hospitality services such as a 16-lane bowling alley, 20-table billiard hall, indoor golf course, boxing and sports complex, full-service barbershop, cigar lounge and 60-cent lunches at the popular California Coffee Shop. Facing Michigan Avenue was the popular White Tower hamburger parlor. 

“Bring the ladies,” pleaded ads for the ornate Arcadia ballroom inside the men-only hotel. The massive dance palace could accommodate 2,000 people on its 10,000 square foot floor. Radio station WCAY aired nightly broadcasts of jazz and swing bands, and helped bring couples to dance on the freshly waxed floor.   

Research by historian Michail Takach’s revealed that the Antlers was built on the former machine shop of Charles Smith and Sons, manufacturers of baby carriage parts and bicycle frames. Smith’s son, Arthur, moved the business to a larger location under the name A. O. Smith. 

The Futuristic Ballroom

In 1932 local promoter Jimmy Devine leased the ballroom and named it the Futuristic, a sister to his Modernistic jazz ballroom at State Fair Park. Faced with stiff competition from the Wisconsin theater’s rooftop dance hall and the Million Dollar Ballroom inside the Eagles Club, the Futuristic became a pro-level boxing and wrestling arena where combatants fought for cash purses. In time those sports moved to the Auditorium and the Futuristic reverted to a tawdry dance hall called the Antlers ballroom  

The Swan Theater

In 1960, Ray Boyle, formerly of the Fred Miller Theater on Oakland Avenue, transformed the ballroom into a 700-seat stage and supper club called the Swan Theater. Seating bordered the stage on three sides and the performance area and dressing rooms could accommodate Broadway plays traveling the national circuit. "The Antlers Ballroom had that worn look that comes with growing old gracelessly," noted the Milwaukee Sentinel. "If you returned on New Year’s Eve, 1961, you found a miracle." Former exotic dancer Gypsy Rose Lee opened the Swan with a “rollicking, racy comedy,” ‘The Third Best Sport’.  

Other stars who appeared at the Swan were Julie Newmar, Pat O’Brien, Betty White, Broderick Crawford, Sylivia Sidney, and Darren McGavin. But after 18 months of Boyle’s leadership, the Swan was more than $100,000 in the red. His position was eliminated, and the new management took control, but the damage was done. When negotiations with the Melody Top owners to buy the Swan fell through, the Antlers Hotel Corporation evicted the theater’s executive staff for unpaid rent. The Swan closed permanently in December 1964. 

The Scene

Frank and Peter Balistrieri were local businessmen with controlling interest in several downtown nightclubs. The brothers bought the former Swan and opened a rock music haven that some say was Milwaukee’s best music venue ever. On September 9, 1965, Peter Balistrieri opened the Scene, a nightclub that hosted some of the best jazz and rock bands of the time.  

One week after the grand opening, Chuck Berry was the first of many acclaimed musicians to grace the stage, albeit to a less than capacity audience. Berry opened the show with a sarcastic “Welcome, lady and gentleman”. During the first number the duck-walker’s amps malfunctioned, and Berry fumed. Meanwhile a bevy of attractive go-go girls served lots of alcoholic beverages and even hopped on the stage to dance. Emergency repairs by knowledgeable employees got Berry’s music going again, but the enraged guitarist cut his set short and left. One of Frank Balistrieri’s enforcers “backed Berry in a corner and threatened him with physical violence unless he went back onstage and played.  

Bandleader Duke Ellington and the “high priest of jazz” Ray Charles were some of the artists who followed Berry. Once the Scene was up and running, Peter Balestrieri’s niece, Benedetta, booked the bands and ran the club. When she got married a few years later, more than 1,000 guests attended a reception held at the Centre Stage dinner theater. Music was provided by the legendary band leader Harry James. 

Milwaukee historian Rob Lewis found dozens of groups who played the Scene, including Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, the Allman brothers, Cream, and Steppenwolf. Jazz greats included Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa. The Scene’s fiercest competitor for big name performers was The Attic nightclub directly across the street. Count Basie’s orchestra played the Attic after Ellington appeared at the Scene.  

The Centre Stage Dinner Theater

In 1972 the Balistrieris invested almost a $1 million dollars to transform the Scene into the posh Centre Stage Dinner Playhouse. They hired Milwaukee producer Robert Simpson who assembled a series of lively musicals with unknown talent. But Frank wanted the big-name entertainers, and he brought in Zsa Zsa Gabor, Milton Berle, Edgar Bergen, Hildegarde, Bob “Gilligan” Denver, Gabe Kaplan, and Elvis Costello, to name a few.  

Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura in ‘Star Trek,’ recounted in her autobiography how Frank Balistrieri once scared William Shatner nearly to death. Nichols says the actor planned to pull out of a summer stock play in Milwaukee. A raspy-voiced guy called Shatner and said, “Bill, I want you to do this play“. Shatner screamed at his agent until he was told the caller was a mafia boss with enough clout to yank him from the ‘Star Trek’ film. Later Balistrieri sued Zsa Zsa Gabor for $500,000, claiming she did not play the Centre Stage for the agreed-upon $7,000 a week.  

The operation struggled, especially in summer when it was forced to compete with the Melody Top for talent. Scheduled shows were cancelled due to tax liens and other outstanding bills. The theater was dark on many evenings and became a dinner buffet and a party rental.  

The Centre Stage folded in 1980, leaving Milwaukee without a traditional dinner theater for the first time in decades. The Balistrieris held a “going out of business” sale and disposed of lights, projectors, speakers and other entertainment venue equipment.  

When the Antlers hotel was demolished in 1980, a galaxy filled with stars came down too.