History resurfaces in Holly

 Holly — The things you expose during a restoration — maybe even a secret passageway and buried empty caskets.

 The fire in downtown Holly on Tuesday, June 21, caused extensive damage to the historic Holly Hotel, owned by George and Chrissy Kutlenios.

 They’ve owned the building since George bought it after the 1978 fire. He found historical items and slowly put his touch on everything at the Holly Hotel.

 Five months after the June 21 fire and restoration work is a slow work in progress. Removing damaged materials affected by fire, smoke, water or mold takes time. Consultations with insurance inspectors, restoration experts, contractors and weather is adding to the challenges to bring the Holly Hotel back to life.

 As previously reported in the Times, the Holly Hotel’s sprinkler system was heat activated and it saved most of the attic area. Chrissy said the lower level sprinklers turned on later, but not before it was filled with smoke and several feet of water from firefighting efforts. She was told that firefighters used approximately one million gallons of water fighting the fire.

 The couple have vowed to rebuild the landmark that sits in the heart of downtown Holly.

 Last week, Chrissy and George posted on the Holly Hotel’s Facebook page that they wished they were putting up Christmas decorations, but instead, engineers and contractors were working on plans to restore the building, keeping as many historical features as they can.

 The Holly Hotel is filled with history. It was the hub of social activity in the early 1900s. Civic and social groups utilized the Holly Hotel while travelers and salesmen used the public rooms for meetings and demonstrations. Sunday dinner at the Holly Hotel was a formal event for locals and visitors alike, usually preceded by a performance at Baird’s Opera House, one block south.

 In the 1800s, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade of alcohol drinks, to put a stop to a society filled with alcohol-related problems. In 1920, in the United States, prohibition became a nationwide constitutional law that strictly prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. It lasted until 1933.

 Like many restaurants and other businesses during that time, business owners turned to an underground world of smuggling imported whiskey, rum and other liquors by waterways or land and secretly selling the spirits in speakeasies to individuals who still wanted to buy and enjoy the beverages.

 When contractors recently started work around the Holly Hotel’s foundation, an underground passageway was exposed on the exterior wall that connected to the basement of Battle Alley Arcade Antiques building next door. The June 21 fire started in Battle Alley Arcade Antiques and what little remains is being removed. The slight curved outline at the top of the stone passageway can be seen where the old stones of the original 1800s foundation meet concrete bricks that were added later.

 Discussions with historians confirmed to George and Chrissy that the basement of the business next door during the early 1900s was likely used as a secret storage area of liquor in case the Holly Hotel was raided during the prohibition years.

 George said that local historian Vera Cook Husted (1896-1991) had self-published a handwritten 74-page book, “A Business History of Holly, Michigan, 1876-1976. He said after the ’78 fire, she had told him back during the prohibition time, there were two passageways from the Holly Hotel to the old arcade building next door — one in the basement and one on the second floor that led to a bedroom. Liquor could be passed from either of these secret passageways.

 “This was common in the ‘30s,”George said. “The locals didn’t talk about it.”

 George also mentioned that when they did excavation work after the 1978 fire, they discovered new, unused caskets buried under the basement floor. He said it was unclear if the caskets were made next door and stored in the Holly Hotel’s basement or if any were made in the basement of the Holly Hotel.

 This area of the basement, prior to the June 21 fire, was referred to as their Agora room, which is Greek for a gathering place. It was adjacent to their newly created Alley Cat Club that also was in the lower level.

 George said with so many bars in the Holly area, the rum runners or bootleggers knew there was a good market for liquor in Holly. “Bars always had a secret stash. It was a well known secret,” he said.

 Restoration work will continue and protecting the interior from the harsh winter elements of Michigan are a priority.

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