Palomar Theater
314 N. Coast Highway,
Oceanside,
CA
92052
314 N. Coast Highway,
Oceanside,
CA
92052
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A photo from around 1937:
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wow, you can see the star theater showing the house where evil dwells..
Here is a night shot:
http://tinyurl.com/c4dw9t
Here is another photo from the same date:
http://tinyurl.com/cztlm7
Here is a 1983 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/c7k253
Here is an item in Boxoffice magazine, October 1963:
Skip Reagan has taken over the booking and buying chores for the Palomar, Town, Star and Crest Theaters in Oceanside for John and Robert Siegal.
OK, I just checked the page for the Sunshine Brooks Theater and was reminded that it was apparently the project Floyd Stanbery designed for an existing building in 1936.
Correction: Clifford Balch’s partner’s surname is spelled “Stanbery” (an “e” but only one “r”) in 20 California Index cards, including the one to which I linked above. Stanbury, with a “u”, is a close second, appearing in 16 cards. Southwest Builder & Contractor uses both spellings in different articles. Another periodical called West Coast Builder uses only Stanbury. The Index contains two citations from Los Angeles Times articles, and both of these use Stanbery. I think the wisest course would probably be to go with the L.A. Times. The usually reliable ArchitectDB uses Stanbery as well.
Incidentally, none of the cards in the Index use the double-r spelling Stanberry, which Cinema Treasures currently uses. We should probably get rid of that.
Contemporary sources quoted in the California Index mention two proposed theatres in Oceanside in 1936, involving two operating companies. Fred Siegel’s Palomar Operating Company hired Clifford Balch to design a theatre to be erected on Hill Street (now Coast Highway) between Topeka and Michigan Streets (Southwest Builder & Contractor, 1/17/36).) As 314 N. Coast Highway is about three blocks north of that location, unless the street numbers have been changed I don’t see how that proposed theatre could be the Palomar.
I can’t find any numbered streets on a current map of Oceanside, but the second 1936 theatre project in that city was supposed to have been at Hill and 3rd Streets. It was a project for the Inter-Counties Investment Company, of Anaheim, and called for the remodeling of an existing building. Plans were to be by Cliff Balch’s usual partner, engineer Floyd Stanbury, apparently working alone, as he did on a few occasions (Southwest Builder & Contractor, 3/17/36 and Southwest Builder & Contractor, 6/19/36.) Given that the address of the Palomar today is 314, it seems possible that Pier View Way was once called 3rd Street, and this possibility is probably what led to the surmise that the Palomar was this 1936 project.
As the Palomar dates from 1924 (as this article in Sign On San Diego indicates), then neither Balch nor Stanbury had anything to do with this particular theatre, unless one of them designed the mid-1930s renovation mentioned in that article.
I have found no information on whether or not either of the two 1936 theatre projects mentioned in Southwest Builder & Contractor were ever carried out.
Paul, You are correct about both the year and the architect. The theater was opened in 1924 and R.E. Struve built it. Struve also built the Calrsbad Village Theater in downtown Carlsbad in 1927.
There’s a cover article in today’s San Diego Reader, detailing the histories of all the downtown theaters once run by Vince Miranda, at one time co-owner of California’s Pussycat Theatre chain. This is one of the theaters chronicled in the piece, which is built from a series of email interviews with Cinema Treasures contribs Dan Whitehead and Tim David (David is Miranda’s godson). Unfortunately, the online version doesn’t have any of the great photos and graphics seen in the printed version – I wrote the piece and will probably put scans of the graphics on my own webpage before much longer, after the next issue comes out. Here’s a link to the article on the Reader site:
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This is our second major feature on southern CA theaters in about a year (the other, “Field Of Screens,” is just on San Diego drive-ins and can be found on the Reader site with the search bar). If anyone here likes the article(s) and would like to encourage the publisher to greenlight more, feel free to leave your thoughts about the piece in the comment section after article. The paper really pays attention to reader comments!
http://www.sdreader.com/ed/cover/
I maintained the projection and sound equipment in this theatre beginning in the early ‘80s when it was purchased by Walnut Properties (along with the Crest, Star and Towne). The projection booth was very tiny and the only access to it was up a straight iron ladder. It was a little hard to get up that ladder with a heavy tool case. There was a dry cleaning plant next door and the booth always reeked of dry cleaning fluid.
One source says the theater was built by R.E. Struve.
This theater opened in 1924. It had an upstairs ballroom and a $10,000 Morton organ. The Palomar provided entertainment for the community with movies, plays, and comedy routines. I believe the building was demolished circa 1988 to make way for the current Oceanside library and civic center.
when did this movie theatre close I don’t remember it when I was in Calif