A bailar: Famed dance hall La Villita to reopen

SAN BENITO — The legendary dance hall billed as the birthplace of conjunto music is coming back to life.

La Villita, which has showcased conjunto’s biggest stars, is reopening this week.

“La Villita is a historic jewel — a regional landmark,” Bernard Rodriguez, the city’s downtown coordinator, said. “The city welcomes its reopening.”

On Thursday, Epi and Friends will headline a ceremony celebrating the event. On stage, Rick Garcia, executive vice president of Hacienda Records, will serve as master of ceremonies.

About two years ago, owner Mike Diaz closed the old building at 261 Robertson St. to bring it up to code, Rodriguez said.

“The city of San Benito prides itself as the birthplace of conjunto music and La Villita is synonymous with that,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a part of our heritage.”

In the mid 1950s, Rey Avila was a teenager when he stood next to the big stage to get a glimpse of legends like Conjunto Bernal, Ruben Vela and Gilberto Perez.

“It’s historic,” said Avila, founder of the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame and Museum. “It was the most famous dance hall in the Valley.”

In the early 1940s, Fernando Sanchez, who ran a mosaic tile factory, turned a ramshackle lumber yard into the dancehall he named La Villita.

“That was the place to be,” Avila said. “It was a big stage and Fernando Sanchez would hire the best conjuntos around. Here in the Valley, it was the place to play. It attracted fans from the whole Valley.”

Conjunto’s biggest stars, including Narciso Martinez and Valerio Longoria, pioneered their accordion-driven music on the dance hall’s stage.

“La Villita is known as the ‘birthplace of conjunto music’ in its own right,” Rodriguez said. “People traveled by the truck loads from all over South Texas for weekend dances.”

In the 1980s, La Villita closed after Sanchez’s death, Avila said.

But Diaz dreamed of reviving the dancehall.

As a teenager, he came to La Villita to dance with the girls who sat on long wooden benches, their parents watching close by.

Then in 2005, Diaz, bought the dance hall from the Catholic War Veterans.

Throughout the building, thick plaster hides the dancehall’s concrete-block shell.

Next to the stage, long railroad ties run across the top of the dance hall’s lounge.

Today, the sprawling dance floor still glistens with Sanchez’s artistry, featuring big, thick tiles designed in a bold, checkered layout.

Near the stage, ceramic tiles of green, red and yellow form the image of La Virgin de Guadalupe.

Along the dance floor’s edge, wooden benches remain from La Villita’s glory days.

“The dance floor was wide-open, with benches around the perimeter where the single girls would sit as the men would stand huddled together and eventually move their way to catch the eye of a young woman,” Rodriguez said.