SunnyBrook Ballroom is one of the few remaining large dance halls of the pre-World War II era still in existence and still operating.  
For its first three decades or so one of the big "name" dance bands played here every Saturday night, New Year's Eve, and sometimes during the week or on other holidays.  Located just east of Pottstown, it attracted dancers from a 50-mile radius,and all the Main Line, who came to dance to -- or in some cases just to listen to and watch-- virtually all the top dance bands in the country.

It was during the Depression, in early 1931, that Ray Hartenstine Sr., later known as "the dean of the big band ballroom operators, decided to add a dance pavilion to the swimming pool and picnic grove he had built five years earlier on a portion of the old SunnyBrook Farm".

The finished ballroom opened on Memorial Day, less than eight weeks after its construction was started.  "Modern in every detail and spacious enough to seat 1500 persons at a banquet," it was reported in the Pottstown Mercury the next day, "the new building ranks with the finest to be found at any place in the East....  [It] attracted upward of a thousand persons to the opening and the beauty of the building excited the admiration of all who were on hand for the opening dance."

The first band to play at SunnyBrook Ballroom, at its opening on Memorial Day 1931, was Joe LaFrance and his Bosch Radio Band, advertised as "one of the finest in the country".

The size of the ballroom and its capacity to accommodate a large crowd also helped SunnyBrook attract the best bands.   The attendance record, over 7300 people, was set in February 1942 by Glenn Miller during his last road trip before disbanding his orchestra to go into the U.S. Army Air Force in September.

But overall, it was Tommy Dorsey who drew the best, with crowds of more than 6000 on several occasions just before Glenn Miller's record.  "If we wanted to make money to buy something or do something," Ray  Hartenstine Jr. later recalled, "we brought Tommy Dorsey in, sent him a cable."

The ballroom was still run on the assumption, as Ray Hartenstine Jr. put it, that "it is a privilege
to come to SunnyBrook", and that it was a place where there would be no trouble. It was an atmosphere appreciated and respected by both
the bands that played there and the people who came to listen and dance.  Everybody was well dressed, and if anyone got out of line in
any way he or she was asked to leave.

Both before and after the war there were regular remote radio pickups from SunnyBrook over station WRCV in Philadelphia and also, from
time to time, on nationwide broadcasts over the CBS or NBC networks as SunnyBrook was included as part of a regular series of pickups
each week from ballrooms and hotels in different parts of the country. 

"The History of Sunnybrook" by Thomas Sephakis
  Arcadia Publishing

This book contains over 200 exclusive photographs of Sunnybrook's past - Details the history of it's founding and the many famous bandleaders who played there.
Available for $19.99 each (plus $5.00 shipping and handling.)
To order: Call 484-624-5186 or write
ts@sunnybrookballroom.net