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John Eberson, Architect
from Wikipedia
John Eberson (1875–1954) was an American architect best known for his movie palace designs in the atmospheric theatre fashion. (This source and many others give Eberson's year of death as 1964.)
Born in Czernowitz, Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Ukraine), Eberson went to highschool in Dresden and studied electrical engineering in Vienna. He arrived in the United States in 1901 and at first settled in St. Louis. There, while working for a construction company he designed his first theater, the Jewel, in Hamilton, Ohio. A year later found him living in Chicago, and in 1926 he made his final move, to New York City.
Eberson attained national, and even international acclaim for his atmospheric theatres, many of them executed in exotic revival styles, including Italian Renaissance, Moorish Revival and others. The first of these such theatres is considered to be the Orpheum in Wichita.[1] "He specialized in depicting outdoor settings with no formal walls and made the whole auditorium a gigantic stage set that enveloped the whole audience."
Eberson earned the nickname “Opera House John” because of the number of theaters he designed. His son Drew Eberson also became a theater architect, and the two Ebersons practiced together from 1926 until John Eberson’s death in 1954. In later years, Drew Eberson renovated many of the playhouses originally designed by his father.
The Akron Civic Theater opened in 1929 as the Loewe's Theater. The Moorish-style theatre, designed by Eberson, featured elaborate wood carvings, alabaster statuary, and European antiques. The theater was remodeled in 2001 and reopened as the Akron Civic Theater.
Silver Spring, MD : The 1938 Silver Theatre, designed by Eberson and restored in 2003.
Like many institutions in economically depressed Flint, the Capitol Theater is now closed. It first opened in 1928, and was built for the W.S. Butterfield chain. The Capitol Theatre has an exterior design in a 15th-century Hispano-Italian style, with the Atmospheric style auditorium designed to resemble a Roman courtyard.