Welcome, it’s Adrian Bo from Ray White Park Coast Eastern Suburbs. And today I’m opposite 263-269 in Clovelly Road, to talk about a building with a fascinating story, that has evolved into its current use as a childcare centre. The 1930s saw a huge boom for the cinema industry leading to a chain of movie theatres being established in Sydney called Kings Theatres. The advent of speaking movies, as opposed to silent movies led to a huge growth in audiences and the cinemas enjoyed a great run of healthy profits between the Depression and World War II. The first Kings Theatre had been established by Guy Crick, when he took over the Mosman RSL. Crick was an architect himself, specialising in acoustic design and in fact, established an architect firm called, Crick and Furse, which went on to design and build many more cinemas for other people, after the Kings Theatre, Clovelly was built, their last theatre in the Kings chain. At the same time, art-deco architecture became more common and so when Kings Theatres decided to build a cinema here on the corner of Knox Street and Clovelly Road, the resulting building was considered an art-deco masterpiece of the era.

Incidentally, last year I sold the neighbouring adjacent property to the building which is 271 Clovelly Road, a renovated beach house, offering a wonderful fusion of classic and contemporary and it sold for a record price for a semi on Clovelly Road at the time. Back to the cinema here which opened on the 24th of June, 1939, just at the start of the Second World War, with the movies, “If I Were King” starring Ronald Coleman and “Burn ’em up O’Connor” starring Dennis O’Keefe. Capacity was 593 in the stalls, 168 in the front circle and 184 in the rear circle. Amazing to think that many people back then would go to the cinema two or three times a week. Saturday was considered the big day of the week as it would offer a double bill. And in later years, Fridays would become horror night. At the time, there were also two other cinemas in Clovelly, the Odeon, which became Chemist Warehouse and another called The Clovelly which was later turned into a gas station. As with many cinemas of that time, the establishment of television destroyed their market in the 1950s. Yet it wasn’t until 1983 that the last Kings Theatre in Chatswood closed down. 1959 saw the end of the Kings Theatre in Clovelly here, the last movie to show was “Violent Playground” starring Stanley Baker and Norman Wisdom. On closing, the building was turned into an RSL and Airforce Club.

Then after trading for multiple decades the then president of the Clovelly RSL club in 2012, Jim Rankin was forced to close the club due to financial pressures. And after becoming derelict for over four years, in 2016 it was turned into the Roly Poly Early Learning Centre, which it is now. The renovation involved partial demolition but the retention of the exterior of the old art-deco building that housed the original cinema remained. The Coogee RSL became a sub-branch of the Coogee-Randwick RSL with an office at Coogee Diggers Club. Now, I’ve been selling properties in the Clovelly and surrounding areas for 35 years, all around the Eastern Suburbs, including a couple of weeks ago number 29 Vale Street in Clovelly, not far from here, which was an original semi, which I sold for a record price of $2,650,000. I also had the privilege to sell unit 4 at 61 Arden Street, units 5 and 6 at 15 Barry Street in Clovelly and also a charming house at 40 Park Street, amongst many others. I’m fairly confident, most Clovelly residents would not be fully aware of the history of this building. Originally being that cinema and then the RSL and now the Learning Centre. Here on the corner of Clovelly Road and Knox Street. What a great landmark and a beautiful example of art-deco masterpiece. It’s my aim to keep these stories alive and I hope you enjoyed this one of Kings Theatre and the Clovelly RSL. Keep smiling and always remember your home is worth more with Adrian Bo.