Colonial Theater, South Hill 5
[There are 5 images in this set] This is a creative commons image, which you may freely use by linking to this page. Please respect the photographer and his work.
The Colonial Theater in South Hill, Virginia, dates from 1925, when the town had a population of around 1400. Originally constructed for musical performances and vaudeville, it was remodeled as a movie theater in 1933 with new lighting and sound systems. It had retail and office space (e.g. lawyers and insurance agents) on the second floor and a Masonic meeting hall on the top floor. For a period of time the building also housed the post office with its entrance on the clipped corner. During the 1930s it encouraged clean-up campaigns, offering “Tin Can Movies” with free admittance to children who brought in 25 tin cans; it supported the war efforts in the early 1940s by offering free admission for bringing in scrap iron. It closed down in the 1970s. In 2001 it was purchased by a civic group and in 2011, after some renovations, became a cultural center and a site for performing arts—the 400-seat theater on the bottom level, an art gallery and offices on the second, and a ball room on the third.
The 3-story red brick structure with 14,571 square feet is the tallest building in the town of South Hill. The style is commercial. It’s most noticeable feature may be the clipped corner, a design element often used for buildings with street corner entrances. One of the major repairs was replacing a deteriorated roof with one of standing seam metal, similar to the original. The walls of the front and right facades culminate in a parapet, subtly ornamented in brick panels; the theater section has solid walls. Below the parapetted portion is a wide overhang supported by brackets of brick between which is a series of stone tablets. These panels are framed in brick with white stones at each corner. The use of stone also accents each 2-story window section with white stones again at the corners. Separating the ground level from the upper two stories is a stone ledge. On the front façade are 1/1 double-hung sash windows in groups of two and threes, each with its own transom; they extend around the clipped corner onto the side façade. At street level there are large display windows with vertically segmented transoms. The corner entrance is a double-leaf wood door, each leaf with a single vertical pane; above is a transom which provides continuity with the design of the larger windows. The lobby entrance consists of two pairs of wood doors, each with an upper vertical pane and 6 smaller panes below. Aside from changes made to the lobby entrance, the structure possesses architectural integrity, maintaining the original design and use of materials.
I had no opportunity to go inside to see the floors of ceramic tile and the pressed tin ceilings. More on the interior design is at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (VDHR) site in the National Register nomination form, to which I’m indebted for much of this information. The theater was placed on the National Register of Historic Places May 19, 2003 with reference ID #03000448
The theater’s internet site is www.colonialcenterva.org/
The VDHR link to the pdf nomination file is
www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Mecklenburg/301-5...
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Colonial Theater, South Hill 5
[There are 5 images in this set] This is a creative commons image, which you may freely use by linking to this page. Please respect the photographer and his work.
The Colonial Theater in South Hill, Virginia, dates from 1925, when the town had a population of around 1400. Originally constructed for musical performances and vaudeville, it was remodeled as a movie theater in 1933 with new lighting and sound systems. It had retail and office space (e.g. lawyers and insurance agents) on the second floor and a Masonic meeting hall on the top floor. For a period of time the building also housed the post office with its entrance on the clipped corner. During the 1930s it encouraged clean-up campaigns, offering “Tin Can Movies” with free admittance to children who brought in 25 tin cans; it supported the war efforts in the early 1940s by offering free admission for bringing in scrap iron. It closed down in the 1970s. In 2001 it was purchased by a civic group and in 2011, after some renovations, became a cultural center and a site for performing arts—the 400-seat theater on the bottom level, an art gallery and offices on the second, and a ball room on the third.
The 3-story red brick structure with 14,571 square feet is the tallest building in the town of South Hill. The style is commercial. It’s most noticeable feature may be the clipped corner, a design element often used for buildings with street corner entrances. One of the major repairs was replacing a deteriorated roof with one of standing seam metal, similar to the original. The walls of the front and right facades culminate in a parapet, subtly ornamented in brick panels; the theater section has solid walls. Below the parapetted portion is a wide overhang supported by brackets of brick between which is a series of stone tablets. These panels are framed in brick with white stones at each corner. The use of stone also accents each 2-story window section with white stones again at the corners. Separating the ground level from the upper two stories is a stone ledge. On the front façade are 1/1 double-hung sash windows in groups of two and threes, each with its own transom; they extend around the clipped corner onto the side façade. At street level there are large display windows with vertically segmented transoms. The corner entrance is a double-leaf wood door, each leaf with a single vertical pane; above is a transom which provides continuity with the design of the larger windows. The lobby entrance consists of two pairs of wood doors, each with an upper vertical pane and 6 smaller panes below. Aside from changes made to the lobby entrance, the structure possesses architectural integrity, maintaining the original design and use of materials.
I had no opportunity to go inside to see the floors of ceramic tile and the pressed tin ceilings. More on the interior design is at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (VDHR) site in the National Register nomination form, to which I’m indebted for much of this information. The theater was placed on the National Register of Historic Places May 19, 2003 with reference ID #03000448
The theater’s internet site is www.colonialcenterva.org/
The VDHR link to the pdf nomination file is
www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Mecklenburg/301-5...
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.