It’s Curtains for Corona’s 1920s Theater

Just over 60 years ago, Hollywood stars turned out for a lavish celebration to open the Corona Theatre, a reminder that the wealth and glamour of the golden age of movies extended even to the main streets of a small agricultural town.

Over the years, the Spanish Colonial Revival-style landmark, with a red-tiled tower and ornate facade, stood out among the stucco, concrete and wood-frame buildings along 6th Street, then Corona’s main thoroughfare. The building even survived the city’s urban renewal of the late 1960s, when much of what was left of the city’s decaying commercial district was torn down.

But city officials have deemed the theater and an adjoining office building as seismically unsafe, and the owners of the 38,000-square-foot structure, now known as the Landmark Building, have applied for a demolition permit. The costs of restoring and retrofitting the building, they say, would be too high. And preservationists, who had sought last year to list the building in the National Register of Historic Places, say that there is little they can do to save the place.

“We decided not to press it,” said Susanna Branch, a member of the Corona Historic Preservation Society who helped file nomination papers to place it in the National Register. “But we made our stand clear. We’re so short on (historic) commercial buildings.”

As part of Corona’s centennial celebration in 1986, a consultant was hired to prepare nominations to the National Register in an attempt to preserve what was left of old Corona. The first, the Woman’s Improvement Clubhouse, at 1101 S. Main St., was listed and approved for the Register in 1989.

But owners of the theater opposed its designation to the National Register, fearing that it would hamper efforts to redevelop the site. Nearby business owners also opposed the designation, fearing that it would delay or stall any effort to redevelop the downtown area in the next few years.

“It’s one of the last structures left in the downtown area from the earlier period, but that’s as much as could be said about it,” said Kent Hansen, a member of the Corona Downtown Business Assn. and a former president of the Preservation Society. “I’m not for saying, ‘Let’s just reduce everything to rubble.’ But I’m also not for saying, ‘Let’s preserve everything,’ unless there’s a good reason. With this (building), I’m not convinced of that.”

Under city guidelines, the building could be demolished as early as March if the permit is granted. Owners say they hope to build an office building on the site.

“The building aesthetically is in very good shape,” said John Vanderbur, a co-owner of the site. “. . . It’s beautiful. There’s no question about that. The question is, will it fall down on its inhabitants during an earthquake?”

Vanderbur, who along with several partners purchased the building and its land in the late 1970s for about $250,000, said that renovation costs would be at least $600,000. The property is valued between $1.7 million and $2.6 million, he said.

Local historians said the building’s architecture was seldom found in Corona and the surrounding area in the late 1920s, when the town’s population was only 7,000. Before the Corona Theatre was built, the town had two smaller, 5-cent movie houses.

“It was supposed to be a classy establishment,” said Lois Shockley, president of the Preservation Society. “It was a big event at that time.”

According to records in the Corona Public Library’s Heritage Room, the theater opened on Aug. 29, 1929, with the screening of the early talkie “Nights of New York.” Director D.W. Griffith served as master of ceremonies at the opening, which was attended by Al Jolson, Irving Berlin, Clara Bow, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Sid Grauman of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

The theater’s designer, Carl Boller, was ranked as one of the top five theater architects in the United States. The Corona Theatre’s lobby was decorated with tile, arched gold ceilings and blue walls.

Inside the 900-seat auditorium, Boller used “atmospheric theater design,” a style popular in the late 1920s and early 1930s in which ceilings were painted to represent the sky and walls were painted to represent trees, streets and buildings. To enhance the outdoor feeling, Boller used sliding wooden doors for the stage instead of curtains.

The building was constructed with recessed red-tile roofs reminiscent of those on structures in old Spanish villages, according to preservationists. The theater and offices were divided by a tower with an octagonal roof, which still stands out among newer bank buildings and offices near 6th Street and Ramona Avenue.

The Corona Theatre was the only movie house in town until the 1970s, when a small theater was built across the street in the new Corona Mall. By that time, big-screen movie houses had given way to more profitable multiplex theaters in shopping centers. In 1982, the theater closed, and has since been used for Amor Outreach, a church organization, and several business offices. In 1988, an 11-screen theater complex opened in a newer commercial area nearby.

For the owners, the safety of the building during an earthquake was the turning point in their decision to demolish it.

“When we looked at this, (we found) it’s just not worth it to hire a consultant for $50,000 who will tell us that it will take $200,000--or even $2 million--to renovate it,” said Jim Deegan, a Corona-based developer working with the owners. “The structure is just too difficult to work with.”

Preservationists say that an official record of the building will be maintained after it is demolished. A file on the theater, including photos and historical data, will be kept at the National Register of Historic Places in Washington.

They also plan to continue to press the City Council to save what is left of buildings of early Corona. High on their list is the Corona Civic Center, which was built in 1923 and has been proposed for restoration and expansion at a cost of more than $40 million.

“It’s the owner’s choice,” Preservation Society President Shockley said of the demolition of the theater. “. . . That’s progress. But you’d like to retain some character of a town, whether progress goes on or not.”