CUBA — The party’s over for the Cuba
Lake Pavilion. The popular dance hall, where people have dined and
danced each summer for more than half a century, will be torn down
to give way to more lakeside homes.
Wesley Wakefield, the current owner of the pavilion, told the Daily
Reporter yesterday he has sold three pieces of land around the
pavilion for residential purposes, and will keep for himself a
fourth lot on which the pavilion is located.
The building will be torn down within several days, Mr. Wakefield said,
after an auction of its contents and lumber tomorrow.
Mr. Wakefield said he has been considering selling or disposing of the
resort building for “some time,” and that financial consideration,
including offers for the lakeside lots, made up his mind.
Items to be sold at the auction, beginning at 1 p.m. tomorrow, include
kitchen equipment, restaurant and bar furniture, antique ice cream
parlor chairs, and oak desk, picnic tables, and lawn chairs.
Mr. Wakefield also hopes to sell much of the lumber from the pavilion.
Whatever the outcome of the auction, the pavilion will come down soon,
ending a summer tradition at Cuba Lake that stretches back to the
early years of this century.
In 1915, J. Fenton Olive purchased what was then called the Thomas
Pavilion, hoping to turn it into “a first- class pleasure resort,”
according to a news item in a 1915 Cuba Patriot.
For many years thereafter, “Olivecrest” was the scene of summer dances,
bathing, and dining. Although its history until 1948 is a bit hazy,
“program dances” were a popular part of the Olive tenure at the
pavilion.
About 1948, William Rasmusson bought the pavilion, and sold it seven
years later to Darwin Barnes of Wellsville. In 1961, Mr. Wakefield
became the owner.
In recent years, a new dancing generation kicked off each summer season
at the lake to the sound of rock bands at the pavilion. The last
public event there was on Labor Day 1973.
An amusement park at the pavilion was closed in 1970, when Mr. Wakefield
sold the children’s rides.
