The Stissing Center Hall Dedicates Its Hall To Honor Jack And Irene Banning

The way the Pine Plains and environs community has rallied around the planning, fundraising and construction of The Stissing Center is admirable and heartwarming. This support played out in full force on Saturday, April 15 when a large crowd was on hand for the dinner and dedication of Banning Hall in honor of Jack and Irene Banning.

Built in 1915, the big brick building — then called Pine Plains Memorial Hall — with its tall windows and crown of dormers was a public hall, then a mall, a movie theater, and finally a crumbling reminder of the more prosperous days in Pine Plains’ past. In 2015, visionary Jack Banning purchased the building and put together a team that would save the structure and renovate it into a cultural center.

On Saturday evening after cocktail hour in The Cellar (the lower-level multi-use space with a speakeasy vibe), the guests flowed into the hall, now revived as a rustic-chic performance space, for the dinner catered by Champetre. Board members and others who have been involved with the building’s renaissance related how impossible it was to resist the force of Jack Banning’s entreaties to save and renovate the building. The Bannings insisted it was community effort, and that there is more work to be done. Plans for this year include the restoration of the upper and lower levels, the installation of an elevator, and space for offices and an art gallery.

There is always more to do, but already The Stissing Center and Banning Hall has become a hub for the community and a beacon of cultural vibrance and Pine Plains civic pride. Thanks in great part to the Bannings, the organization has adopted the motto, “Your stage next door.”