Nate and Andrea Sheppard love inviting people into their home for concerts and other kinds of visual and performing arts.
“For many years, we've done house concerts and events in our house, you know, just turn our living room into a stage, just because we thought it was an enjoyable way to spend time with friends,” said Nate Sheppard.
They’d been looking for a commercial space in Rhinelander for a couple years now.
When the old Hilgermann building on Brown Street became available this spring, Sheppard said it fit a lot of their needs and their hopes for the community.
Now called The Hilgermann Center for Community, it has studio space for his media business as well as other spaces for other businesses, like Crate Diggers Music and More and Childs Frame Co. that moved into over this summer and fall.
“That's a big passion of ours as well. It's just like, ‘Let's revitalize downtown, let's invest locally. Let's make sure to keep things local as much as possible.’ We're really thrilled to have both of our renters in the space,” he said.
There’s also a space in back Sheppard plans to host community gatherings in. He hopes others in the area will take advantage of it too.
“Our hope with this space is to really partner with the community and provide some really interesting, unique programming. To just fill in some of those gaps and maybe link arms with some of the other local organizations and nonprofits and things like that. What are ways that we can use this space to help support the community, that's kind of the heart behind it,” said Sheppard.
Sheppard says it’s a return to the heart of what building’s original purpose was and has been sporadically throughout its 100-plus year history, a place for the arts and community.
It’s one of the reasons why they wanted to keep Hilgermann in the name.
“That's a part of belonging to a community is memory and history. To really draw up a lot of the history, that beautiful history that Rhinelander has, but then it's sort of so that we can also look to the future and find new ways to engage with the community and to develop things and to meaningfully engage with the challenges and benefits of the Rhinelander area,” said Sheppard.
The Hilgermann Center for Community Grand opening is Friday, November 22nd from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. There will be a jazz duo performing and Italian soda and popcorn available.
They’re also hosting a Holiday Market with local vendors Saturday, November 23rd from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
“All of the businesses will be open, and you can do a ton of holiday shopping. The record store has some great gifts. The frame shop has a ton of really great artists and gifts as well. We’re kind of trying to aim to be a bit of a one stop shop for your holiday shopping,” said Sheppard.
The events are the same weekend as Downtown Rhinelander’s Annual Holiday Open House.
The downtown event encourages people to shop local during the holiday season.
Many participating stores will be extending their hours.
