The Lake Theater and Cafe was opened on March 23rd 1940 in Lake Oswego, Oregon. At the time, the building stood 140 feet long and 80 ft wide and was designed by Richard Sundeleaf and Murphy and Dean Company. The Total Investment for the building cost around $50,000. What makes the Lake Theatre so unique is the dock, used by Lake Oswego residents to drive their boat on the Lakewood Bay straight to the movie theatre.
Norman Goodin was the first owner of the Lake Theatre until he was replaced by father-son duo, Carl and John Macfadden. The Macfaddens had also been involved in operating the Laurelhurst, Crest, and Alvan theaters. John Macfadden was charged with fraud in February of 1957 due to an underreporting of tickets to the distributor. They both owned the theatre until Carl's passing in October 1961.
At some point in the 60s, Max Cohen became the owner of the theatre. He was also thought to have been the projectionist for the theatre. A big roadblock in my research was being able to find any programming ads. The only time I was able to find an abundance of ads for screenings at the Lake Theatre was when it was suddenly referred to as one of Tom Moyers Luxury theaters in the late 70s. I was unfortunately not able to find any further information about the Moyers' involvement.
In the late 80s the Lake Theatre was referred to as the Twin Cinema in the Oregonian. I strangely wasn't able to find any other sources that refer to the theatre as the "Twin Cinema."
There was a pretty big gap in information I was able to find in my research on the theater from the 80s to the present, but I did find out some information about the damage and repairs the theater underwent.
In 1980, the theater was ordered to be closed by the city due to safety issues with the roof and other structural problems. This is when the theater was split and turned one screening room into two, with 450-460 seats. The repairs were made to the roof and structure, and the theater opened back up sometime in August of 1984.
Here is an image of the Theater when Lake Oswego flooded over. This is when the theater was passed over to the current owner, Drew Prell.
