Raven Performing Arts Center

Was up in Healdsburg for the first time this past Friday afternoon and visited this former movie theatre now open for live events. A nice lady let me come in to check out the place. Still in good shape and they kept a great art deco light fixture on the ceiling of the lobby. This light would look so hot with Blue LED’s inside in place of white lights. I think It had color lights when It ran as a movie theatre. Time for them to get a fund going to put some color deco side lights on the side walls in as the original ones are long gone. Hope they can show some classic movies also. Check the theatre out If you are in town and see a event.

I grew up in the Aven and remember the Plaza Theater after it had closed. The Analy Theater in Sebastopol (now gone) was also very similar to the Aven and I assume had the same designer.

Gale Santocono was my father, and no, that house was not “normal” but I loved that house. To answer all of the old questions, my father became a licensed architect in the early 1960’s. He was the first person in California to be allowed to sit for the architect exam without the college background, or the requirement of working for an architectural firm. After obtaining his license in CA, he became licensed in several Western states, and then obtain a national license.

Here are a couple more from the same time:
http://tinyurl.com/y9q9zfz
http://tinyurl.com/y942f3u

There is also a Raven Theatre in Chicago on Western Ave near Granville. Though it is strictly live stage and was built inside of a former Jewel Foods grocery store.

Ken: I’ve been trying to discover if the Plaza had formerly been the Fox’s Hall mentioned on this page, and this page at the Healdsburg Museum’s web site. The former page says that Fox’s Hall was built “behind” the Masonic building, suggesting a ground floor site, and the latter page gives the location as the west side of West Street between Plaza and North Streets, which is the block where the Plaza was (it also has a smallphoto of Fox’s Hall in 1904.) Healdsburg has short blocks, and I can’t find any evidence for another theater of the Plaza’s size ever being on that block, but I can’t find the exact address of Fox’s Hall to confirm that they were the same building.

Thanks, Ken. If the Plaza was on West Street, then the Raven must be the 1950 house designed by Gale Santocono. Santocono, like his father, Matteo, was an artist and designer based in San Francisco (he did the decoration the Varsity Theatre in Davis, California, among others), but there are also a couple of cards in the California Index citing 1950 issues of Architect & Engineer saying which refer to him as an architect, specifically of this theater. I’ve been unable to confirm that he was actually a licensed architect, though. He might have been working with an engineer, but doing the actual architectural design himself.

The February 2, 1952, issue of Boxoffice Magazine cites him as the designer of the Seaview Theatre in Pacifica, the Village Theatre in Sacramento, and the Guild Theatre in San Francisco, as well as the Terrace Drive-In (the subject of the article- and yet to be added to Cinema Treasures) in San Francisco.

The February 16, 1952, issue of Boxoffice refers to Santocono as a “theater architect” and says that he is preparing designs for improvements to the Vacaville Theatre in Vacaville.

Also, ken mc unearthed a 1962 L.A. Times article naming Santocono as the architect of the Showcase Theater in Oakland (see Ken’s comment on that page.) And, as robertgippy says in the first comment above, the Raven was a near twin of the Clover Cinema in Cloverdale, before the Clover was remodeled, so that’s probably one of Santocono’s designs as well. The Boxoffice article says, after listing four of Santocono’s theaters, that he designed “many others” as well. I wish there was more about him on the Internet.

By the way, the aka’s listed for this theater should be Avon Theater and Raven Theater. Currently it just says “Aven” Theater.

The California Index at the L.A. Library web site has cards making reference to two theatres in Healdsburg. An item about one of them appeared in the April, 1950, issue of Architect & Engineer, and this card says only that Gale Santocono had prepared plans for a theater to be built at Healdsburg. No name is given for this house.

There are two cited items about the other theater, called the Plaza. The April, 1930, issue of Architect and Engineer announced plans for the Plaza by architect Norman R. Coulter, for Redwood Theatres. The project was to cost $100,000. That a theater called the Plaza was actually built in Healdsburg is confirmed by an article in Motion Picture Herald, January 2, 1932, which said that L.H. Killingsworth was the new manager of the house.

The Raven is probably one or the other of these two theaters. The cards in the index don’t give addresses for either project, so I can’t sort them out. Has anyone got an old Film Daily Yearbook or other source with an address for the Plaza Theatre?