For downtown Mill Valley, 1929 was a good and bad year. The bad was a disastrous fire that destroyed 117 homes and — but for a sudden wind shift — would have added downtown Mill Valley (pictured above) to its toll.
As for the good, ’29 was the year the Sequoia Theater first opened. Prior to that, the Hub Theater at 142 Throckmorton Street, which had opened in the 1900s, was the town’s hot spot for silent films and vaudeville acts. But with Sequoia’s opening, the Hub was history. Mill Valley’s newest theater could seat 1,200 for “talkies” while still hosting vaudeville as a Wurlitzer organ pumped out rousing music. And directly across from the Sequoia, as the barely legible sign indicates, was the PG&E office where theatergoers could pay their utility bills, while a few doors up Throckmorton they could step into a showroom and see the latest models Studebaker Motorcars had to offer.
Over the next 45 years, the neighbors changed, but the Sequoia remained. Then in 1975, bowing to trends, its owners “twinned” the theater, making two cinema screens out of the one. However, when they simultaneously sought to update the Sequoia’s exterior appearance, Mill Valley’s Architectural Advisory Committee said, “Hold on, not so fast, Art Deco is making a comeback.” Thus, from the street the theater looks much as it did 95 years ago.
Then at the turn of the century (1900s to 2000s, that is) plush seats were installed and the theater-to-theater soundproofing was improved. In 2012, the San Rafael-based California Film Institute, organizers of the Mill Valley Film Festival, paid $2.5 million for the Sequoia and in 2022 announced plans to create a cinema and education center with four screens, an expanded lobby and a rooftop pavilion (exterior will remain as is). While that plan progresses, the newly named Sequoia Cinema will book community- and filmmaker-focused films similar to those at CFI’s flagship theater, the Smith San Rafael Film Center. Also, of course, it will host the 47th Annual Mill Valley Film Festival running this year from Oct. 3 to 13.
Jim Wood, former co-owner of Coast, has written articles and op-ed pieces for such Orange County publications as the Orange Coast Daily Pilot, Metropolitan Journal, OC Metro, and Coast Magazine. In 2000, Jim and Nikki Wood sold Coast Magazine to the Orange County Register and, after traveling the world, relocated to Marin County and began formulating Marin Magazine. His preferred topics are local and global issues, travel, and special interest stories.
