Entertaining, engaging and enriching our community for a better understanding of ourselves, others and the world. Art House began as an idea of Billings native Matt Blakeslee and slowly but surely grew to a committed core of individuals passionate to see downtown have a premium theater and art space. Beginning in 2012 we started work on our business plan, hired theater consultants, traveled to conventions, built relationships with other theaters, and began to talking with our architect, Dennis Deppmeier. Finally in the summer of 2013 we found a home in the old bowling alley (Center Lanes) located at 109 North 30th Street. This place was perfect as it not only provided a great space to build our theater, but also provided the adequate room and infrastructure for our desired expansion in the future. We signed the lease and began demolition and remodeling in September 2014. The next 7 months involved many long nights, early mornings and multiple coffee runs as we continued to tweak, design, and build out the theater. Our amazing architect wisely informed us we should plan for an approximate price tag of $220,000 when all was said and done. This didn’t phase us, but simply motivated us to share the vision, fundraise, and work hard to save every penny we could. So many individuals and companies stepped up to the plate to help cut our projected budget from $220,000 to $120,000. This truly became a community project and we are so grateful to everyone who gave, served, and shared the story. March 2015 we opened our doors to the public and began to show films. This is only the beginning and we can’t wait to see what happens as we continue to bring in great films along with showcasing other great art. We can’t wait to have a great conversation.
