‘Picnic’ returns to Kansas and big screen

It has been more than 60 years since Salina residents  — for a few days, at least — could stand across the street from the stately home on Country Club Road and watch actors William Holden and Cliff Robertson perform a scene from the 1956 movie “Picnic.”
Betsy Scholten was in middle school that May and she and her friends thought nothing about taking the bus from their homes across town or asking their mothers to drive them so they could watch the movie crew film parts of the William Inge story about small town Kansas.
“It was a big deal,” Scholten said. “I just remember how handsome William Holden was and Cliff Robertson was so young.”
Even from her place across the road as a spectator, Scholten was able to snag the autographs of the two actors. She put them  under plastic in a scrapbook with an arrow pointing to a photograph of Holden and a handwritten note, “My Dream Man.”
Scholten saved the scrapbook page until several years ago, when she presented it to Marianne and Greg Lenkiewicz, who have owned the home at 417 E. Country Club Road for five years.
Scholten’s middle school memories now reside in a shadow box in the den.
“I truly feel like this page belongs with this house,” Marianne remembers Scholten saying during a visit.
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After so many years, “Picnic” will once again fill a big screen in Salina, where the Friends of the Smoky Hill Museum plans to show the movie Feb. 9 at the Salina Art Center Cinema as a fundraiser for its educational programming. The Ellsworth County Independent-Reporter is a sponsor.
“Picnic,” which was nominated for six Academy Awards and won two, was filmed in Salina and other central Kansas communities, including Hutchinson. The cast and crew were in Salina for 10 days.
In those years, said John Lamone, who grew up here and

now  lives in Virginia, Salina was a typical small town. Teens spent many of their evenings driving up and down Santa Fe, greeting old friends and making new ones.
“Did you ever see American Graffiti? That was us,” Lamone said in a telephone interview with the I-R.
Lamone was a sophomore at Salina High School when “Picnic” came to town. Salina would later have two high schools — South and Central — but there was only one in the 1950s.
Much of the filming, Lamone said, took place at night, but the lights from the movie equipment made it seem like day.
“Everybody wanted to watch,” Lamone said. “The kids would climb up into the trees and you could see their eyes.”
Kim Novak, the film’s female star, visited the high school and kissed one of the students, Stan Dreuets, who would later become a Salina dentist. Lamone’s younger brother, Mike, still has a photograph of the kiss.
However, John Lamone’s best moment came as he stood near what is now the Salina Community Theatre on Iron Avenue. He and two or three other youngsters were invited into Kim Novak’s trailer, where she was being made up for her next scene. In another part of the trailer, Holden and director Josh Logan talked as the starstruck teens stood in silence.
“I’ll never forget, I’ll tell you that,” John Lamone said.
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You can hear the pride in the voices of Marianne and Greg Lenkiewicz when they talk about the brick house with the white shutters and soaring columns.
It’s a pride that goes beyond “Picnic,” a movie they watched together for the first time after having their offer on the house accepted.
“We never stop driving up to the house and being in awe of how stately it is,” said Marianne, a teacher at Salina’s Sunset Elementary School.
The home, built in 1927, was designed by local architect Charles Shaver. Shaver is responsible for hundreds of public and private buildings in Kansas, including Ellsworth City Hall.
Other names associated with the house and the lot next to it include Salina grainman B.K. Smoot, R. J. Labengayer, former publisher of the Salina Journal and founder of KSAL radio, and Mary and Paul Warden, who for years dressed the women of Salina from their fashionable downtown clothing store. Joe Rauh of Busboom and Rauh Construction owned the home at the time of  “Picnic”.  
“It’s part of Salina’s history — an interesting part, a unique part,” Greg said.
Greg and Marianne, who both have roots in Salina, met at a class reunion and have been together since. Greg owns and manages rental properties.
They originally purchased the home with plans to turn it into a bed and breakfast.
Marianne said their goal was “to bring a luxury touch” to the Salina bed and breakfast market.
To that end, they went to the city for a zoning change to allow for a commercial enterprise in a residential neighborhood, remodeled the three bedrooms and large master suite and added bathrooms. They also reached out to the nearby Salina Country Club and other prospective customers in need of lodging for overnight guests. As part of the zoning change, they weren’t allowed to offer the house as an event venue because of limited parking space.
Despite the hard work, it wasn’t enough. Marianne and her mother, who also was involved in the venture, took the difficult step of closing the bed and breakfast after two months of operation.
The Lenkiewiczs decided to sell the house, but Greg still remembers the night they were on the home’s porch, looking out over the golf course across the road to the grain elevators northeast of their house. They both agreed the home needed to be in the hands of someone who appreciated its grace and beauty and would maintain its architectural integrity.
They were talking about themselves.
“It really does take the right people for a home like this,” Marianne said.
The Lenkiewiczs do their own yard work and other jobs to preserve the house. They decorate at Halloween with bigger-than-life spiders and add white lights at Christmas, much to the delight of neighbors and passersby.
“This is a house to showcase. It’s just a gorgeous, gorgeous home,” Marianne said.
And it is their home. During this virtual interview, their three dogs could be heard in the background.
The couple enjoys hearing about the home’s history, especially as the stories fade further into the past. Greg said only the home’s exterior was used for “Picnic.” There are no scenes on the inside of the house, but he has heard stories of a wrap party he’d like to confirm.                                    
Marianne thinks it also would be interesting to see how the house has changed over the years.
“We don’t want to overshadow the previous owners,” she said. “We’re truly appreciative of the house and definitely feel like we were meant to be here.”