May 2025.
Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii.

This Spanish Mission–style landmark has survived hurricanes, disco balls, and roller skates—and today, it stands as a restored tribute to community resilience and architectural grace. The Lihue Theater opened in 1931 with a floodlighted façade and over 880 seats. Kids lined up for the Saturday matinees to watch their superheroes of the day, Flash Gordon (1936) and Superman (1948). Then came the cartoons and the B-Westerns.

Their parents spent their evening at the movies watching dramas and Oscar winners, such as Min and Bill (1930), Grand Hotel (1932), and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Social dramas like The Good Earth (1937), gangster films like Scarface (1932), and Screwball comedies like It Happened One Night (1934) were often featured as second-run, discounted movies.

By the mid-1970s, the curtain fell on the Lihue Theater’s run as a movie house, marking the end of more than four decades of screenings. Like many small-town theaters, the building didn’t go dark. Over the years, it transformed into a luau hall, a discotheque, and even a roller rink.

Hurricane Iniki struck in 1992, leaving the structure battered but not broken. Preservationists stepped in, and what could’ve been a demolition became a restoration that celebrated the theater’s façade while reimagining its interior as senior apartments. The ornate lobby and foyer were carefully restored to reflect the theater’s 1930s character. At the same time, the cavernous auditorium was transformed into 21 affordable apartments for seniors. The building was renamed the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Senior Apartments, and its rebirth earned recognition from the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation in 2000 for excellence in adaptive reuse. Today, the lobby serves as a quiet gallery space, preserving fragments of the theater’s cinematic past for residents and visitors alike.

About the photo: I had to wait until the busy Kuhio Highway was free of vehicles passing in front of the building. I waited probably five minutes until a slight break in traffic allowed me to capture a couple of photos with my Samsung S23 Ultra. I selected the best one to share and made basic adjustments using Adobe Lightroom Classic. I then transferred it to Luminar Neo to use the app’s Remove Power Lines tool in the Erase module. Unfortunately, that tool was unable to find and remove the power lines, a rare occurrence. At that point, I transferred it to Adobe Photoshop and used the Find Distractions > Wires and Cables function, which did a nice job of removing lines from a nearby power pole. I then cropped the image to eliminate the pole and called it finished.

I invite fellow bloggers to join in by creating their own Cellpic Sunday posts. There’s no set theme—the only rule is that your photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or other mobile device. The second rule is simple: link your challenge response to this post or drop a comment here with your link so others can find it. And remember, despite the name, there’s no penalty for sharing on a day other than Sunday.

John Steiner