The historic Kaywood Theatre in Mount Rainier is getting remodeled as a church prepares to move in.
Located at 2211 Varnum St., the movie theater closed in 1977 and was long used by the Harvest Church Ministries, but it has been mostly vacant in recent years with a “for lease” sign outside until recently.
The Casa de Oracion Para Las Naciones is now fixing plumbing and electrical issues and redoing the interior to become a home for its weekly services.
Built with a limestone face in the Streamline Moderne style, a type of Art Deco architecture, the theater opened along with the nearby Kaywood Gardens apartments on December 26, 1945 as part of Sidney Lust’s local movie empire.
Lust, a partner of the actual Warner Bros, moved to the D.C. area in the 1920s to start a chain of theaters that included the Arcade Theatre, now home to the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center; the Hyattsville Theatre, which has since been torn down; and the Cameo Theatre in Mount Rainier, which has also been converted for use by a church.
The Kaywood was much bigger than those theaters, with seating for up to 1,000 as well as a glass-enclosed nursery and special restroom and shower facilities for staff.
The Hyattsville Wire dug up a photo here of the Kaywood Theatre and block on Varnam Street from the late 1940s and an image of a grand opening ad from 1945 here. We also dug up photos of the box office and main interior taken on opening day showing a very similar design to what we captured above.
You can see in the main theatre there were two large allegorical murals on each side of the stage. Around the time that it opened, you can see in this photo that the theater once showed the Warner Bros film “Christmas in Connecticut.”
In 2019, documentary filmmakers Sutton Hoo Studios approached the city of Mount Rainier about partnering with them to restoring the theater and turning the block into a mix of offices and arts venues, a project that was estimated to cost $15 to $33 million, according to Route 1 Reporter.
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