The Henegar Center

Built in 1919 as the Melbourne School and opened to students in 1920, this Neoclassical building was renamed in 1963 for Ruth Henegar, a longtime teacher and principal there, before the school closed for good in 1975 after enrollment collapsed. Local arts advocates saved the deteriorating building from demolition, forming the Brevard Regional Arts Group in 1983 to restore it as a performing arts center, which opened its first show, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, in 1991. Staff and performers attribute much of its mischief to a spirit they call Jonathan: noises and moved props during rehearsals, faces reported in the rafters above the stage, toilets found mysteriously frozen in the middle of a Florida summer, and a figure in black seen entering the women's restroom and never seen to leave.