Gazing around the Hoyt Sherman Theater, a sense of culture consumes you. The 75-year-old room, once graced by Amelia Earhart, drips with elegance.

Not exactly the expected setting for a hip music scene revival.

But it is that elegance that energizes everyone who comes near the Hoyt Sherman Theater in Des Moines.

Rock legend David Crosby can tell you. After hearing his voice resonate from the heavenly ceilings a few nights ago, he made a promise to return — and bring a film crew with him.

“Everyone … everyone who comes in here is overwhelmed,” boasts David Schladetzky, the enthusiastic young director of the room. “They usually include a profanity in describing it.”

It is nearly impossible not to.

The historic theater is a ravishing sight. Posh red carpet, refurbished oak seats and a creaky wooden stage convey more personality than a dozen Barbara Walters interviews.

Standing center stage in an empty Hoyt Sherman Theater, life seems at a stand-still — an appropriate feeling for a room that has been literally stuck in time.

“It’s like your grandmother’s Buick,” Schladetzky says. “It sits in the garage all of the time and then you inherit it, and Fritz [Jnker] and I have been driving this son-of-a-bitch around the block 50 times.”

“It’s a smooth ride,” adds Jnker, the 23-year-old Iowa State graduate who was hired in December to transform the venue into the musical equivalent of Mount Rushmore.

The Hoyt Sherman Place is in every way a hidden treasure.

“People who live in Sherman Hill don’t even know this place is here,” Jnker says. “It’s ridiculous. I don’t know why that is.”

But Jnker and Schladetzky are determined to change that. And their target audience is the twentysomething Des Moines scene they are a part of.

“When I moved here a year ago, I absolutely hated it. There was nothing to do. But I got sick of complaining and decided to do something about it,” Jnker says. “I called up Dave, and he was looking for me at the same time I was looking for him.”

Jnker and Schladetzky are the odd couple of the Des Moines music scene.

Schladetzky wears a suit and is a walking encyclopedia of Iowa trivia. His intimate relationship with the Hoyt Sherman Place is evident in the way he talks about the building as if he grew up there.

Jnker wears black — T-shirt, boots and leather jacket. He drives a Harley, but doesn’t quite fit the part. He is tall and skinny and has a comforting smile.

“This town has gotten a lot more hip within the last year,” he says. “It’s all young people now, and they’re all itching for something to do. I don’t know that I want to live in Des Moines the rest of my life, but while I’m here, I want to do something to make it a little better.”

Jnker was no ordinary student at Iowa State. Entertainment hungry, he spent most of his days at the Maintenance Shop or hosting his STV-9 talk show, “Fritz Jnker’s Ordinary Iowa.”

“At the Shop, I became familiar with the intimacy that is important at a live show,” Jnker says. “It seems like this theater is old and fuddy-duddyish, but regardless of what kind of music you have in here, it’s so thick with aura. You have goosebumps the entire show.”

Jnker’s passion for his new job shoots off like fireworks every time he opens his mouth. He’s fortunate to be here, and he’ll be the first one to tell you.

“Depending on what Dave and I do is really going to determine the scene of Des Moines, and even the surrounding areas,” he says. “We want to draw people from all over. Iowa doesn’t really have a cultural center. Some people say Iowa City is, but really, it should be Des Moines.”

Jnker and Schladetzky are part of a group of young entrepreneurs who are working to transform downtown Des Moines from Yuppyville to a mini-East Village.

Venues like the Val-Air Ballroom (another historic Des Moines building), Julio’s, Rock Island and Blues and Beyond are reviving music scenes that have been lost in Iowa for years.

A new radio station is also in the works that will spin the eclectic tunes blistering inside local venues — much like the defunct KFMG.

Jnker believes the station will allow the Hoyt Sherman Place to keep bringing in what they do.

“I can’t get Jimmy Smith on the radio anywhere,” Jnker says of the Hammond B-3 pioneer who is playing the theater May 8. “Even with KKDM, they have to go through a hundred different channels to get They Might Be Giants added.”

While Jnker and his cronies are optimistic about spicing up the Des Moines music scene, they are aware of the challenges.

“This is the most important thing that I’ll say to you,” Jnker disclaims. “If people support it, we can keep doing it. If they stop, we’re back to square one, and it’s going to be used as a discouraging note.”

Since Jnker took over booking, the Hoyt Sherman Theater has hosted critic-favorite Lucinda Williams, Crosby and the National Shakespeare Company. All of the shows have gone well, but none have quite sold out.

“It’s so nice to see it full of people after all these years of just sitting here empty,” Jnker says.

Getting people in the theater is the challenge, he says, but keeping them there is simple.

“We have people who wander around here after the show and say, ‘Oh my God,'” Jnker says. “And they never knew it was even here.”