Houston’s Historic Garden Oaks Theater Dodges the Wrecking Ball, But the Fight Isn’t Over — Inside the Long Road Ahead To Save It For Good

A band of Houstonians, living in a city that has rarely met an old building it couldn’t imagine replacing, has done something rather astonishing and rare. They have brought one old historic building tantalizingly close to a second life.

After five months of scrambling, pleading, persuading, writing checks and generally behaving as though an old movie theater might actually matter, Arthouse Houston is moving toward closing on the purchase of the historic Garden Oaks Theater. With plans to complete the purchase just after Labor Day.

Arthouse Houston had raised more than $2.8 million and remains roughly $400,000 short of its immediate $3.1 million fundraising goal as it prepares to close on the $7.1 million property through seller financing. Outstanding pledges still have to arrive to make the deal happen. The closing still has to actually happen.

But the wrecking ball is at bay for now.

“We’re so close now we can almost taste it,” Academy Award-winning filmmaker Richard Linklater tells PaperCity. “What’s especially moving is the way Houston, and people far beyond Houston, have come together to make this possible.”

The goal to give Garden Oaks Theater a second or third life as a year-round Arts & Film Center — a home for movie showings, live performances, production, education and creative collaborations in Houston — remains. Once the purchase is complete, Arthouse Houston will move immediately into Phase Two. A major capital campaign geared around restoring the historic cinema and preparing it for a reopening. Hopefully as early as 2028.

There is a lot of money that needs to be raised — and many steps taken — before that can become a reality though.

What began in late February as a frantic attempt to rescue the nearly 80-year-old movie theater from demolition has become something considerably larger. More than 800 donors have contributed amounts ranging from $5 to $500,000, with that support stretching across more than 220 ZIP codes. Houston’s internationally celebrated directors Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater have both gotten involved.

There is a growing hope that some determined Houstonians might actually preserve a piece of history before someone replaces it with something involving quartz countertops.

The old 1947 cinema — with its botanical flourishes, curling vines, terrazzo floors and the lingering glamour of an era when going to the movies still felt like an occasion — is nearly theirs.

“Fundraising is always hard,” Houston preservationist and philanthropist Phoebe Tudor says. “This project has been on such a tight time frame and over the summer. The odds were somewhat stacked against it, honestly.”

Among those who came forward were Phoebe and Bobby Tudor, who committed a $500,000 leadership gift, and founding donors Allison Sarofim and Patrick Seabase, who gave another $500,000.

“I am personally honored to help launch this effort to create a world-class arts and film center for Houston,” Sarofim says. “I am excited that we have come together with the local community and native Houstonian industry luminaries Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater in this endeavor.”

The effort has been strengthened by a wider circle of founding donors, among them Suzanne Deal Booth, Michael Crawford, Stephanie and Frank Tsuru, Debbie and Anthony Padon, Hallie Vanderhider, and Alejandro and Catherine Capetillo.

And then there was Wes Anderson.

The Houston-born filmmaker returned in July for a one-night benefit at the Hobby Center, an almost perfectly Andersonian affair celebrating movies, memory and the peculiar emotional power of an old cinema. Nearly 500 people attended, raising approximately $300,000.

“We’re almost there,” Anderson says. “The screen is just about to light up, and we can already taste the popcorn. The success of this little rescue belongs to every single person in Houston.”

Houston has never suffered from a shortage of ambition. We build enormous things here. World class medical centers. Freeways. Towers. Stadiums. What we have historically been less accomplished at is teardown restraint. In allowing a neighborhood treasure to remain standing long enough for another generation to fill it with memories of its own.

The Garden Oaks Theater opened in 1947, when neighborhood cinemas were gathering places and the architecture surrounding a movie was considered part of the experience itself. Its story could easily have ended after it became a church and faded from movie memory. The 2.3-acre property was then sold to the the Heights Investment Fund for $7.1 million, and demolition appeared frighteningly plausible.

Then, Houstonians began showing up. They protested. They called. They donated. They pledged. Even the smallest contributions may say as much about what happened here as the largest ones. Five dollars a month from somebody who may never make a movie, perform on its stage or see their name engraved on a donor wall matters.

Just One Step

There is a danger in telling this story as though the credits are already rolling though.

“To be able to go to closing and get the building will save it from the threat of demolition, and then allow people to move forward with Phase Two,” Tudor says. “It’s also going to be a lot of work.”

The larger vision is ambitious. Arthouse Houston estimates the entire project — including acquisition, restoration and equipment — will ultimately cost approximately $18 million to pull off. Plans call for a year-round Arts & Film Center that brings screenings and movie premieres, live performance and festivals, production studios, arts and media education sessions, a microcinema and a flexible theater space.

If the capital campaign proceeds swiftly (which rarely happens in these type of complicated campaigns), Arthouse founder and director Maureen McNamara hopes the Garden Oaks could reopen as early as 2028.

“I feel extremely excited, charged up and ready to go on the next phase,” McNamara tells PaperCity.

The argument for the Garden Oaks is that certain experiences still require a place: a theater, other people, the lights going down and the sacred hush of strangers in the dark, waiting together for something to begin.

There is still a formidable road ahead. The Garden Oaks Theater isn’t close to coming back to life. But for the first time in a very long while, you can almost imagine the lights flickering back on and a projector playing.

This old 1947 movie palace — with its botanical flourishes, curling vines, terrazzo floors and the lingering glamour of an era when going to the movies still felt like an occasion — is not dead yet. And that is more than a start.