Na'alehu Theatre
95-5659 Mamalahoa Highway,
Na'alehu,
HI
96772
95-5659 Mamalahoa Highway,
Na'alehu,
HI
96772
4 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Consolidated Theatres
Styles: Art Deco
Previous Names: Southern Star Theatre
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This theatre was built in 1940 by the Hutchinson Sugar Plantation in Na'alehu, Hawaii. It originally had 550 seats and serviced a population of 8,000 residents and 10,000 military troops stationed at South Point on the Big Island. The sugar plantation closed in 1996, and with fewer than 3,000 total population, the theatre ceased running first run movies and opened in 2003 as a plantation movie theatre museum.
There were projection room paraphernalia, photos, a miniature movie theatre collection, and a Donald Duck collection on display and gave guided tours of the projection room. Donations were accepted, there was a guest sign-in book, and a pamphlet about the theatre and the surrounding Ka'u area.
By 2022 the museum had closed and the theatre stood abandoned. It was demolished on March 7, 2023.
Contributed by
Joe Demoruelle
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
Homepage:
http://www.naalehutheatre.com/
News of its recent troubles can be found here in this Saturday, June 30, 2007 article from the Hawaii Tribune-Herald: View link
There is a photo on this real estate site:
http://activerain.com/patrickjlambert
View link
Looks like the roof fell in and flooded the place. A local main street organization is applying for a lease from the Weinberg Foundation, but they don’t have much money or support. Local contractor estimates repairs at $150,000.
I was the manager from 1979-2006. We shut the doors when the owners, Weinberg Foun., refused to fix the leaking roof. The theater was denied historical status by the owners. This would have opened up funding from restoration grants. I’m afraid the theater is doomed by “demolition by neglect”.
This Hawaii Tribune-Herald article from December 27, 2019 about the theater’s current situation even references the description on this Cinema Treasures page saying “…it was the go-to theater for some 8,000 residents and 10,000 troops stationed at South Point, according to cinematreasures.org.”:
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2019/12/27/hawaii-news/officials-considering-offer-from-foundation-to-turn-over-naalehu-theater-to-county/
It is essentially abandoned at the moment, looking worse every day.