During the day, the Golden State Theatre looks as if it’s napping, getting its beauty sleep before a night out, but the truth is that a lot is going on inside the building. Noise and traffic at the glass lobby doors are typically caused by preparations for an evening show, although lately much of it relates to the slow, ongoing and careful renovation of the historic venue.
Downtown Monterey wouldn’t be the same without the façade of the building, which this year celebrates its 100th birthday. These days it’s mainly a concert venue, but for anyone who loves old-fashioned theaters, spending time inside the Golden State Theatre is a visual treat. Nearly every corner holds a detail worth a second look, and a century of performances seems to linger in the walls.
On a September afternoon, it’s artist Lisa Haas who stands proud in the theater lobby. She is wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket over a white T-shirt, and has the voice of a rock star. Haas and her crew have just finished renovating the shabby walls and the splendid ceiling of the lobby. It took more than two weeks of work: removing the old paper, sanding the surfaces, and recreating and re-installing the intricate design the original designers set out to conjure in 1926. A lift was involved, and much of the painting was done onsite, with the crew working overhead.
“We use different products than in the 1920s, but everything else is exactly the same,” Haas says about her work.
The result looks new and shiny – elegant, long ivory yellow panels in a double red frame, with the central ornament kept ambiguously somewhere between floral and heraldic.
The theater was designed by the San Francisco architectural firm Reid Bros. in a modernized school of Spanish construction, meant to give off the effect of a Moorish or Castilian castle, “partaking just the least bit of the colonial scheme to make it fit in admirable fashion, into the magnificent setting of the city where civilization’s feet were first planted upon the Western coast of the United States,” as the program issued for the 1926 opening put it. “Steel grilles, miniature balconies and typical Monterey tile serve to bring out that touch which speaks in romantic terms of days of yore. An indirect lighting system of unique design brings out every nook and cranny of the Alvarado Street exposure to the best advantage.”
The theater opened with 1,600 seats at a time when Monterey’s population was only about 6,000, making it the largest theater between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Standing under the restored ceiling today, it is easy to see what the program’s authors were reaching for. The colors are crisp, the lines are clean, and the lobby once again feels like a grand entrance rather than a mere passageway to the auditorium.
“There is so much to this theater,” Haas says. “Somebody needs to write a book or something.”
Haas is a decorative painter, muralist, painting contractor and color consultant with 25 years of experience. Perfection in color and finish matching is her specialty, and she has long been interested in restoring murals and paintings in old buildings. It is work that demands patience as much as skill, since every brushstroke has to respect what was there before, and what the original artists intended.
A Monterey resident, she has been interested in the theater building for a long time, working closely with the current and previous owners, as well as with Martin Schmidt, the good spirit of the theater, who has been overseeing a slow, painstaking, but always forward-moving renovation of the venue. While he doesn’t believe that, at this pace, the theater can be fully restored in his lifetime, he tirelessly keeps going, step by step.
Restoring a century-old building is rarely a one-time job. Paint fades, plaster cracks and materials age, so some work has to be done more than once. The lobby ceiling at the Golden State Theatre had been restored before by EverGreene Architectural Arts.
For Haas, finishing one project simply means looking toward the next.
“The lobby ceiling is done, it’s time for the mezzanine,” she says.
She hopes to be involved in more restoration work at this beloved venue, helping make sure the Golden State Theatre is ready for its next 100 years.