The Old Bellevue Theatre Is About To Get A New Life

by Charles McGuigan 03.2023

The long-neglected Samis Grotto, sandwiched between Dot’s Back Inn and Zorba’s Pizza Express in the commercial heart of Bellevue, is about to get a long-overdue renovation thanks to a joint effort by Alex Griffith and Ben Adamson who purchased the property for $300,000 back in mid-January. The pair plan to breathe new life into this important architectural remnant of the 1930s, a structure that has been in a state of physical decline for years. 

“The ceiling’s kind of falling in,” said Ben Adamson, owner of Corinthian Construction. “Every time you walk in, there’s another huge chunk of plaster on the floor.  And it’s kind of a disaster of wet moldiness.”

All that is about to change. Ben and his business partner in this venture, Alex Griffith, recently hired Bruce Shirley as architect for the project. Bruce is a Bellevue resident. “I’ve worked with Bruce for fifteen years,” Ben tells me. “And he is committed to the neighborhood, and all of us want to do what’s good for the building and what’s good for the neighborhood.” 

To that end, the developers plan a “full-gut remodel” for the old theatre. “We’re going to have to upgrade all the facilities there,” Ben says. “We’re going to do a new roof, a whole new electrical service. We’ll likely need to do an upgraded water service, an upgraded sewer line; and then we’re going to have to add sprinklers to the whole building.”

The price tag for these improvements will be about $1.2 million.

Ben and Alex plan to utilize all three stories of the building.

“We will preserve the exterior shell,” says Ben. “And the plan is, in the back area where the theater is, we will add two floors. We’ll be adding a lot of square footage by doing that.” 

“The whole first floor (between 3,000 and 4,000 square feet) will be a commercial place,” Ben says. That commercial space could be divided for two tenants, or rented to a single user. “I’d love to get a market in there,” says Ben. “Something like Libbie Market. Or maybe an art gallery.”

The top two floors will accommodate a total of ten apartments. “They’re going to be for more of a mature audience, not the micro one-bedrooms you see in Scott’s Addition,” says Ben. “Most will be one-bedroom, but if we can, we will squeeze a couple of two bedrooms in with two full baths.” 

As everyone familiar with MacArthur knows parking is scarce on the commercial strip. Ben says he and his business partner will lease some parking spaces on adjacent privately owned properties, if necessary. “We will do whatever is required from zoning,” he says.

Their plans also call for a complete restoration of the building’s front elevation, returning this unique Art Decco movie house to its former glory. With a simple brick facade and sandstone highlights, it is an essay in stripped-down classicism. 

The Bellevue has a long and storied past. It opened with the screening of “Mountain Music” in the late summer of 1937 when MacArthur Avenue was still called Rappahannock Avenue. The architect was Henry Carl Messerschmidt, who also designed the Lee Theater on West Grace Street in the Fan District.

As the story goes, Shirley MacLaine and her younger brother Warren Beatty saw their first motion picture at The Bellevue, which was just a couple short blocks from their American Foursquare home in the 3900 block of Fauquier Avenue. After watching that first movie there, the young Shirley MacLaine supposedly decided to become an actress. 

For a couple decades it was a popular neighborhood movie theater, and then in the late 1950s it became home to another form of entertainment altogether. For a number of years, Virginia’s version of the Grand Ole Opry was broadcast live from The Bellevue. After Sunshine Sue retired as host of the Old Dominion Barn Dance in 1957, the show was renamed the New Dominion Barn Dance and its home was moved from the Lyric Theater in downtown Richmond to The Bellevue in the Northside. Among those who performed on its stage were Buck Owens, Porter Wagner, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Jr., Johnny Cash, June Carter, and a very young Willie Nelson. 

The Bellevue Theatre closed in 1965, and a year later, at a cost of a little over $26,000, Samis Grotto purchased the old theatre.

Now it is about to enter a new phase of its existence thanks to a pair of developers who have a vision that both preserves and improves. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in the neighborhood,” Ben Adamsom says. “We’re excited to see how it all pans out.”