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MARFA – David Beebe hasn’t seen any ghosts in Memorial Funeral Home, which he is transforming into Padre’s Marfa, a dancehall and nightclub.

Perched atop a half-carved monument outside the former funeral parlor, his long limbs draped in a red Pearl Beer jacket, the 35-year-old musician and club manager says he’s spotted a few ghosts at other clubs where he’s worked. He’s seen harmless spirits at Houston’s Continental Club, which he helped start and currently lives above, as well as the Satellite Lounge, the first Houston venue he managed. Rockefeller’s, the historic Houston music hall where Beebe’s club career started, was inhabited by more formidable ghouls, he says.

But so far in Marfa, no apparitions have appeared while Beebe has been clearing out the embalming room, stripping carpet from the memorial chapel, or camping out on couch cushions on the funeral home office floor this year. He doesn’t expect any visiting specters, except maybe that of an undertaker or someone else drawn to the building by their history there. It’s the building’s history – not so much as a funeral home but as an old building with a rich past – that drew Beebe, a University of Texas history major whose greatest pleasures, as listed on his MySpace website, include music, history, roller skating, and RC Cola.

Beebe says his Episcopalian priest, Father Bill Miller, is the “concept guy” behind Padre’s. Miller, himself a musician, had been searching for a potential club location in Marfa for a few years. When he showed Beebe the former funeral home, the history buff told him it was perfect.

Miller, now a priest in Hawaii, approached Beebe last summer about being the “execution guy” for Padre’s. At the time, Beebe was making plans to get away from the club business, which he calls “career B,” and dedicate himself to “career A”, music, by joining a conjunto band. Those plans fizzled when Beebe was told he needed vocal chord surgery after years of singing for El Orbits, Banana Blender Surprise, and other bands. When Miller asked him to help create the Marfa club, Beebe recognized it as the right time to return to the club business. He made a commitment to spend at least four years getting the club off the ground and may stick around longer if he doesn’t start suffering from burnout.

“This is so different than doing this in Austin or Houston or San Antonio,” he says. “I would not be doing this if it were anywhere but here. This also has the greatest potential for being the best.”

With Padre’s, Beebe plans to build on his success creating and managing other music venues. He’s going to bring in the professional lighting and sound systems he’s used previously. And he plans to have a large stage span one side of the opened-up interior and a bar running along a perpendicular wall.

Beebe says he will be applying for a full-liquor license, but won’t be open past midnight on weekdays or 1am on Saturday, and won’t, of course, serve minors. He says he’ll also be sure to have plenty of non-alcoholic beverages on hand. Having given up drinking for Lent, Beebe says he knows non-drinkers will appreciate being able to choose from more than two-dollar water bottles at the bar.

Behind the bar, on the far east side of the building, Beebe hopes to have a kitchen, where he’ll cook up Gulf Coast food during the day before opening up the dancehall at night. The menu will change daily but be limited; perhaps he’ll offer a plate of rice and beans one day, he says, and gumbo and coleslaw the next.

In the building’s backroom, Beebe has been stashing his own belongings in preparation for his move to Marfa in April. The spacious room will eventually be home to shuffle boards, pool tables and 45-RPM jukeboxes. Sliding metal doors on both sides will open up onto a fenced patio surrounding the back end of the building.

With food, drinks and games, Beebe hopes people will be drawn to Padre’s as a gathering place. “We’re trying to create a place where people can interact and a place for more community activities,” he says.

Dancing and music, though, will be the heart of Padre’s. Beneath the funeral home’s carpet, Beebe was thrilled to find a hardwood floor. “This is going to be an excellent dance floor,” he says.

One thing Beebe says he likes most about Marfa is live music is still a special event. At other big city clubs, Beebe has to book bands every night, whether he likes their music or not.

“So hopefully here we’ll have live music only when it fits,” he says. “Having a band on the stage will be more an exception than the rule.”

Beebe’s previous club work means he has several connections with bands he could bring to Marfa. But he wants the venue to primarily feature an eclectic mix of local music talent. He might even start up his own Marfa band.

Beebe doesn’t want to compete with existing bars and music venues in the area. “The last thing I want to do is be some idiot from Houston who tries to reinvent the wheel,” he says.

But he thinks there’s plenty of room in the area music scene for Padre’s. On nights when there’s a show somewhere else, Beebe says Padre’s might just have a DJ playing records or be the place people congregate afterwards for food and shuffleboard.

Padre’s may also eventually be home to a small music festival or two. Miller started popular jazz festivals at his former churches in Austin and Houston, and Beebe says the priest will probably start one at the Marfa club.

It will be awhile though before anyone plays on the Padre’s stage. Beebe, Miller and their other business partner originally hoped to open Padre’s this fall. But a recently discovered problem with the roof will delay the club’s completion. “If it’s done in 2007, we will have made good time,” he says.

But Beebe is patient; having also worked as a contractor, he knows that sagging ceilings are par for the course when resurrecting an old building.

Besides, the history lover says he would never create a nightclub in a new building. “You can’t create soul where there isn’t soul already,” he says.

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