Paramount Theater
26 College Street,
Asheville,
NC
28801
26 College Street,
Asheville,
NC
28801
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The Paramount Theater in Ashville, NC is another theater that I found on the web. On the link below, is a small photo of this theater. It gives a construction date: c. 1930, so I assume that is the year that this theater was built.
Any additional information on this theater would be appreciated.
Contributed by
Lost Memory
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Recent comments (view all 11 comments)
You can update information on this theater. It was knocked down many years ago and is a parking lot for Asheville Savings Bank.
Another parking lot another bank! Oh my ‘good'ness, but it’s not for the good of Asheville!
This theater stood at the corner of Market and College. Although it has been demolished you can make out the outline of the balcony on the one remaining wall that touches the building that was next door.
The Paramount was know as the Majestic in its early years.
Here are some photos of the Paramount and Majestic. Addresses are 26 and 28 College, so I think they are different theaters:
http://tinyurl.com/2oylsm
http://tinyurl.com/2e7yrf
http://tinyurl.com/2nagfw
Mark in NC: When in Asheville again, I shall visit College and look for the “you can make out the outline of the balcony on the one remaining wall that touches the building that was next door”.
If this theater was also known as the Majestic, it dates back earlier than 1930. A Robert-Morton theater organ was installed in the Majestic Theater in 1927.
The Majestic and the Paramount were side by side but two different entities. As LM stated in the header the Paramount opened in 1930 and closed in 1961. Seating in 1958 was listed at 750.
The Majestic Theater, at the corner of College and Market Streets in Asheville, was designed ca 1912 by Smith & Carrier, Architects, who had their offices on an upper floor. The Majestic Theater was initially operated by the Asheville Amusement Company, with major stockholders S. A. Lynch, A. H. Carrier, and W. M. Robertson (Carrier’s brother-in-law), and featured vaudeville acts as well as motion pictures. Carrier, my grandfather, had a window cut in his office wall so he could watch performances.
Smith & Carrier moved their offices to the Knight-Overland Building on College and Valley Streets shortly before the firm was dissolved on Smith’s death in 1924.
At some time between the 1920s and 1930s, ownership of the theater changed, and it was renamed the Paramount Theater, showing second-run films and on Saturday afternoons westerns (9 cents for children).
I think there’s something off about the photo used as the related web site in the description. The theater in the photo is obviously old, not from 1930, despite what its caption says, and it doesn’t have the name Paramount Theatre on it. There’s just a banner reading “Paramount Special.”
It’s possible that the theater in the photo wasn’t called the Paramount at all, but was merely advertising the 1920 Paramount release “Treasure Island” (the 1934 version of “Treasure Island” was an MGM production.) The photo probably dates from 1920, which means it probably doesn’t depict the Paramount or Majestic) Theatre at all, but another house that actually was at 26 College Street. This Paramount isn’t.
Some of the information in Jdr2010’s comment above is also on this web page about architect Albert Heath Carrier, provided by the North Carolina State University libraries. I think it’s safe to presume that it’s accurate.
Multiple sources say that the Majestic became the Paramount. The book Asheville: A Postcard History, by Sue Greenberg and Jan Kahn, gives the Majestic’s address as 118 ½ College Street, the same as the 1951 address of the Paramount.
Google Maps actually gets closer to the actual location of the theater (College and Market Streets) using the address 120 College Street than it does with the correct 118 ½ address. The address of 26 College currently listed fetches a spot several blocks away.