Today, four years later, Nandor Furstner fondly refers to the second fl oor of his garage/workshop complex near Maple Lake, Orrville, as ‘the ball room’.
Here, the Parry Sound Scottish Country Dancers have discovered the simple design and construction is perfect for adding a spring to their step while they practise every Friday at 2 p.m. in spring and fall.
Nandor was fi rst introduced to Scottish dancing more than 20 years ago, when he married a Scottish gal who was an “excellent dancer”. While the marriage is now history, his love for Scottish dancing has only grown deeper. In fact, when the local Scottish dance group needed an instructor, seven years ago, they looked no further than Nandor.
While he would normally view heating with electricity as a drawback, for his purposes of course, he doesn’t have to heat it all when there is no dancing, and even when they do get together, it’s only a matter of warming up the room for two or three hours. Besides the dancers prefer a cooler hall – ideally 15 or 16 degrees.
Installing a wood stove was an alternative he dismissed for his purposes.
“Now there are regulations in the building code that are very restrictive for wood stoves, so I didn’t want to be bothered,” he explains.
Windows in the front and back of the hall allow for plenty of natural radiance on the dance floor.
He chose to install a large chandelier in the centre of the ceiling, with supplemental illumination provided with two fluorescent strip lights. Two fans were installed for air circulation, which is appreciated by the dancers, especially if it’s a hot day.
“A fan is an obvious thing to have in a room, whether it is a dance hall or not,” he notes.
While keeping fl oors warm, or even installing heated floors above a garage is often a consideration, for the purposes of a dance fl oor, this was not a great concern. Six inches of insulation was placed under the fl ooring, as well as a plastic vapour barrier preventing fumes in the garage from fi ltering up to the second storey.
“And of course the main feature of a good fl oor is that is wood not concrete,” the local Scottish dance instructor emphasizes. “A good dance fl oor is springy and we have that. Dancers should have spring in their step. That comes with the music, the exhilaration of the dance.”
“When we go to another place to dance, we want to know is it concrete or is it wood, whenever it is a wood floor we have an extra bonus. If it is a hard fl oor we can get through it, but it strains the legs. It doesn’t give so, there’s more tension put on the muscles.”
The structure of the dance fl oor is wood joist with 5/8- inch tongue and groove plywood deck, but the cover is a thin layer of indoor/outdoor carpeting.
“It’s perfectly suitable and it’s the cheapest,” says Nandor.
“If I had to put in a hardwood fl oor fi nish at $3 per square foot or more for oak or maple, this is maybe one fi fth of the cost. It is just perfect for the purpose. It’s easy on the legs. It gives you that extra little push, that springy thing.
When he moved to the area in 1991, there was no Scottish dancing group, but that was about to change.
In 2001, local dancers tried to form a group, but didn’t have a teacher. That’s where Nandor came in.
“I conduct the classes and provide the music and instruction,” he says. “I don’t have a certifi cate – I guess I became a teacher by default. They seem to be pleased with what I’m doing for them.”
For the first three years, the Parry Sound Scottish Country Dancers rented the upstairs hall of the Bobby Orr Community Centre, always making sure it was available, and taking time to book and cancel dates.
“So I decided then that it would be much better if I had my own dance hall,” Nandor explains. “And they love it.”
The dance hall construction was a fairly straightforward design for the Hungarian-born architect who immigrated to Canada 51 years ago, following the Hungarian Revolution. He received his architectural training at a technical school in Hungary, and obtained his civil engineering degree from École Polytechnique de Montréal. He worked as a structural engineer, initially in Montreal, and later in Toronto, before retiring in 1991 and moving to a winterized cottage he’d built on Sugar Lake.
After the cottage, he designed and constructed two homes on lots he’d purchased in Orrville. The second of these homes has the adjoining two-car garage/workshop complex with dance hall.
Special features of the hall include a cathedral ceiling, incorporating a scissor truss.
While he could have made it 12 feet in height, he felt that 10 feet was good for a large hall.
“I wanted to economize, so I started with six feet at the edges and it goes up to 10 feet in height,” he explains. “So there’s a rise of four feet from the edge.”
With exterior dimensions of 32-by-24-feet, the ‘ball room’ offers ample space for three sets of eight dancers per set – not that Nandor ever sees it that full.
Currently, the Parry Sound Scottish Country Dancers has about a dozen active members.
“So we don’t have enough right now and we’d love to have more dancers,” says Nandor “Being a small group, we may lose some of them because of the pre-engagements of members, so sometimes we don’t even have eight.
“Dancing is probably the best exercise,” he adds. “Better than walking and jogging. The problem with jogging is that you have to do it, but with dancing, there is no obligation, it is done for the joy of it.”
Would he recommend the plan he designed to others?
“For somebody who wants a private recreation room large enough for dancing, this would be an ideal size. It can be used for ping pong or having a miniature railroad set-up. I just wanted it for dancing.”