Garden Hills Theatre
2835 Peachtree Road NE,
Atlanta,
GA
30305
2835 Peachtree Road NE,
Atlanta,
GA
30305
8 people
favorited this theater
Atlanta’s premiere venue for independent and foreign film since 1939 and lovingly managed by George Lefont. This theatre was part of the Weis theatre chain in the 1960s-70 and called the Fine Arts. If my finite memory serves me right, I believe that at one time it was equipped with a sequin curtain.
Contributed by
Jack Coursey
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Recent comments (view all 79 comments)
1983 photo of the Garden Hills Cinema.
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Has it been demolished? I would have thought that the bad economy would have save d the structure, if not the theatre. For years I attended Peachtree Film Society screenings here. They were well attended but the Film Society dissolved anyway. Atlanta is a place where indie films do well, but the infrastructure doesn’t seem to last. LeFont once had multiple theatres, and did so as recently as 10 years ago. There have been multiple efforts to have a big national film festival, but they’ve all failed to make money—Peachtree overreached in ‘98 and took years to recover with a somewhat smaller group running it. the desire to build a festival as other cities have and to have a niche or regional focus seemed to be beyond what promoters wanted, so no there’s less than before. Landmark did a nice job of rehabbing a badly degraded venue, but there’s nothing like seeing a film in a real theatre, as opposed to multiplex.
Header needs to be changed to Closed. Google mapping is off on the address and Google street view shows the theatre in very bad shape. But it is hard to tell how old the street view is.
Closed
I have many inside pictures on film of this theater since it closed…What a shame —sits empty..
The Google map places the theatre about half a block north of its actual location. On the overhead shot you can just make out the marquee sticking out over the sidewalk just below the Fantasyland Records label. As for the street view, it is taken from the spot the overhead view points out as the location of the theatre. You can just make out the marquee three doors down from Fantasyland.
The street view shown here is current with the way the place looks now.
Thanks Stan.
Now Showing Sept.13 2001.
“GHOST WORLD” rated R.
Rocky Horror played here at one point. The last film I saw there was about Betty Page..and that was a few years ago. I hate that we can’t keep one arthouse cinema (besides the Fox) open in this city. But then again, the Atlanta city bird is the crane…..
As I mentioned in a post for the Roxy/Capri, the Fine Art was owned by John & Ruth Carter prior to Weis Cinemas. I worked at primarily at the Capri circa 1967. Ruth Carter died in 2009:
CARTER, Ruth Goss Ruth Goss Carter, one of Atlanta’s last Grande Dames, died on September 22, 2009. She was 94 years old. Mrs. Carter was born in 1915 in Charlotte, North Carolina, attended Hollins College in Virginia, and married John Hennen Carter of Atlanta, in 1936. She and her husband were co-owners of the Brookhaven, the Buckhead “Capri” and the Garden Hills “Fine Art” theaters. Mrs. Carter was a devoted bridge player and a life Master of the American Contract Bridge League. She was an avid history buff and worked as a docent at the Swan House adjacent to the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta. She will be missed by her friends and surviving family: her son, John Hennen Carter Jr. of Stockbridge, Georgia; her grandchildren, John Carter III and Kimberly Marx of Atlanta, Georgia, Erik Perschmann of Carver, Minnesota, James Gardner of Stockbridge, Georgia, and Amy Castillo of Jackson, Georgia; and her great-granddaughter, Therese (Princess) Carter. The memorial service will be held at Peachtree Road Methodist Church on October 17, 2009 at 2 o'clock pm.
Published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on October 11, 2009
In 1964 – ‘65, I saw “The Pumpkin Eater” and “A Stranger Knocks”, while it was known as the Fine Art. The parking was somewhat isolated, behind the theatre. The admission was $1.50, like other Atlanta first runs at the time. The back 1/3 of the theatre had a different aisle/seat arrangement than the front 2/3. The screen was adequate, but the layout would have allowed it to be larger. This theatre had the highest seat-to-screen upward viewing angle than any other I have seen.