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Overview

The extravagantly ornate, Baroque/Deco/Moderne Loyola Theatre opened on 10/03/1946 a little over a year after the conclusion of World War II. It functioned as a movie theatre until 1982.

Building History

Fox West Coast Theatres, Incorporated, which had a long and complex ownership history beginning in 1921, aggressively built, bought and sold West Coast movie theatres during the balance of the 1920s. Investors in the exhibition company changed periodically, as the business was both profitable and volatile. Rapid expansion required the company to take on significant debt, which could be serviced when exhibition revenues remained high. By the late 1920s, the West Coast exhibition circuit was aligning itself with that of William Fox (né Wilhelm Fried Fuchs, 1879-1952), and by late 1928 Fox gained control from Harold Franklin, president of West Coast Theatres. Fox's new firm, Fox West Coast Theatres, operated officially under this name by 02/1929, but for only for a very short time. Fox experienced serious financial problems by 1930, for several reasons. He had a serious automobile accident in 07/1929, rivals in the movies industry encouraged a US Justice Department anti-trust investigation, and the Stock Market's collapse of 10/1929, all combined to drain Fox's wealth and influence and caused him to lose control of his exhibition empire by 1930. The National Theatre Corporation, led by Charles Skouras (1889-1954), obtained the bankrupt Fox West Coast chain on 11/20/1933 for $17,000,000.

Building Notes

Prior to 11/12/2025, PCAD incorrectly listed the Loyola Theatre as being in Inglewood, CA, rather than the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Inglewood, an independent city, is located immediately to the east of Westchester.) Thank you to Andy Schmidt of SoCal Landmarks.com for pointing out the mistake. (See email to the author from Andy Schmidt, 11/12/2025.) This mistaken information was obtained from David Naylor's book, American Picture Palaces The Architecture of Fantasy, (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1981), pp. 203-204. Naylor wrote: "The Loyola and the Academy, two of S. Charles Lee's late art deco theaters in the Inglewood district of Los Angeles, have been turned into churches. The Academy was built toward the end if the thirties in an art moderne style, similar to that of the Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles. The Loyola, with its mid-1930s neoexpressionist swan-shaped exterior, was taken over by an Eastern religious group."

Medical office space was advertised as being available in the Abdi-Loyola Medical Building between at least 04/2015 and 05/2024.

Alteration

A 60-foot tower that composed part of the front facade and the theatre's marquee were removed in the early 1980s. Ted Sparks, who bought the Loyola Theatre with a partner in 03/1982, was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article of 07/24/1983: "'To maintain the exterior of the building as an office building would be somewhat bizarre,' he said. 'We're going to maintain the basic lines of the theater; you'll be able to tell it was a theater, but is no longer a theater. In other words, we're not going to retain the marquee but we'll keep some of the flowing lines. We are going to take off the tower (too).'" (See Paul Feldman, "Ornate Theater Appears Doomed," Los Angeles Times, 07/24/1983, p. SB2 and SB7.)

PCAD id: 15131