Lakewood Theatre

I know the official website for the Lakewood attributes the design of the theater to John Eberson, but I think they are mistaken. The February 4, 1939, issue of Boxoffice has an article about the Lakewood saying that it was designed by Dallas architect H.F. Pettigrew. One of the theater’s decorations even graced the cover of that issue of the magazine’s The Modern Theatre section, and the description of it on another page also attributes the Lakewood to Pettigrew.

I doubt that Boxoffice would have gotten the name of the architect of a recently-built theater wrong in one of its major articles. John Eberson is not mentioned in connection with the Lakewood in this article or any other article I can find in Boxoffice.

As a rule, I tend to trust print sources more than web sites, and period print sources way more than web sites. In this case I’m especially inclined to believe Boxoffice rather than the theater’s web site, as this theater was built by Interstate, and Pettigrew & Worley were practically Interstate’s house architects during the 1930s and 1940s. It would have been very uncharacteristic of the circuit to hire a New York architect for this one theater when their other projects during the period were being designed by Pettigrew & Worley.

Group of photos of the Lakewood Theatre courtesy of Randy Carlisle, click each thumbnail for a larger view.

View link

Joe, I’m with you on the architect – it is much more representative of Pettigrew’s taste/style than Eberson’s.

Here’s a newer link to look at some of my photos of the Lakewood Theatre.. Enjoy. View link THeatre ..
RAC Photography
Randy A Carlisle – Historical Photographer

I was on a job in Dallas in the summer of ‘98. I went and saw 5 old movies at the lake. I recall there was “The Philidelphia Story”, “The Awful Truth” and a few others. It wasn’t like going to see just a movie, it was like going to an event. They showed old serial movies first and served drinks right at your seat. An announcer would introduce the feature movie. It was great. Don’t know if they still do that.