Name/Title
327-329 King Street (Gloria Theater Building)Entry/Object ID
KING.327-329.1Scope and Content
Constructed ca. 1855-56; facade remodeled 1923-1927; rehabilitated 1992-93. Barbot and Seyle, original architects. The real estate and movie theater tycoon Albert Sottile purchased this property containing a mid-1850s double tenement built for John D. Meyers's grocery. The architects Barbot and Seyle had originally designed the front facade, but later it was altered with the addition of Italianate style windows. In 1922 Sottile began construction of a theater at the rear and the renovation of the front section with ground-story commercial spaces. When opened in 1927 the facility housed movies as well as traveling vaudeville companies. Although some of its original decorative features were stripped away after the movie house closed in 1975, the remaining features were rehabilitated by the College of Charleston in its conversion of this site in 1993 as the Sottile Theater. The main auditorium still features side archways covered with ornamental ironwork and its original domed ceiling, surrounded by a plaster oculus; a shimmering blue, skylike expanse with "twinkling stars" is created through the effect of lighting within. South Carolina's premier of Gone with the Wind, a festive celebration for the filming of a story that highlighted Charleston's "charm and grace" (and included Charlestonian Alicia Rhett in the cast), was held at the Gloria Theater in 1939. Some of Charleston's most socially prominent women dressed in actual antebellum costumes for the premiere and its accompanying events.
File contains newspaper article (undated DYKYC).
Image #2 from 1967 King Street Photographic Survey.Collection
Historic Charleston Foundation Property RecordsAcquisition
Accession
KING.327-329.Source or Donor
327-329 King Street (Gloria Theater Building)Acquisition Method
Collected by StaffLexicon
Search Terms
King Street, Historic buildings--South Carolina--Charleston, Commercial buildings--South Carolina--Charleston, Movie theaters--South Carolina--Charleston, Theaters--South Carolina--CharlestonArchive Details
Archive Size/Extent
1 File FolderArchive Notes
Finding Aids: Index to Property Files
Level of Description: FolderLocation
Location
Shelf
Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentDate
February 7, 2023Location
Container
PF Box 54Shelf
Prop File Shelves, Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentRelationships
Related Entries
Notes
KING.327-329.2a-c
Related Units of Description: King Street Survey (KING.GEN.001) and King Street "General" files (KING.GEN.002)Related Publications
Notes
Buildings of Charleston (see Abstract), pg. 378-379Created By
admin@catalogit.appCreate Date
August 26, 2009Updated By
admin@catalogit.appUpdate Date
February 17, 2023