Carlsbad Village Theatre
2822 State Street,
Carlsbad,
CA
92008
2822 State Street,
Carlsbad,
CA
92008
2 people
favorited this theater
This theater was constructed in 1926-27 at a cost of $40,000 and was designed in a Spanish Eclectic style. It originally stood in the middle of a field. The first film shown in 1927 was Clara Bow’s "It", a rather racy film for the time.
Contributed by
Steve Covault
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Recent comments (view all 9 comments)
Website of current owner:
http://www.carlsbadvillagetheatre.com/
Contains a few pictures of renovated auditorium.
There is one photo of the theater at this site: View link
Here is a recent photo of the Carlsbad Village Theater.
From the LA Times, 3/3/90:
Carlsbad Theater Won’t Be Razed
The owners of the vaudeville-era Carlsbad Theater indicated this week that they have dropped plans to demolish the 63-year-old building and are negotiating to reopen it as a movie house showing classic films.
The Normandins threatened to seek a city demolition permit, believing that state law required all unreinforced masonry buildings like theirs to be strengthened by next year. The family argued that they couldn’t afford such expensive earthquake renovation and would lose their liability insurance on the property if they didn’t comply with the law.
A Robert-Morton theater organ opus 2317 size 2/4 style 16 was installed in the Carlsbad Theater in 1927.
Here is an April 2007 article:
http://tinyurl.com/3cxgg6
The seat count given on the Carlsbad Village website is alot less than the 600 given above. “There are 294 fixed theater style seats plus 36 movable chair seats (330 seats total)”.
I’ve searched all the usual sources and can’t find any references to either Roy Chase or R.E. Struve as architects, and few references to them of any sort. The California Index contains one card citing a 1928 L.A. Times article saying that R.E. Struve was financing the construction of a building at Encinitas, and there’s a PDF about the coast highway citing a couple of 1925 Oceanside Blade articles saying that Roy Chase had built a hotel there. As far as I’ve been able to discover, neither Chase nor Struve was an architect, but both were local developers.
Until some convincing evidence turns up, I’m inclined to say that the actual architect of this theater remains unknown.
Here is a 1983 photo:
http://snipurl.com/gjxvt