Chase's Theater and Riggs Building
- Architect
- Jules Henri de Sibour
- Style
- Beaux-Arts
- City
- Washington, DC
- Collection
- the city beautiful
Jules Henri de Sibour designed this Beaux-Arts theater and office building in 1912 for Plimpton B. Chase; B.F. Keith bought it the following year and folded it into his vaudeville circuit, which later became the Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain and then RKO Pictures. William Howard Taft attended its 1912 opening, Woodrow Wilson was a regular patron, and performers included Will Rogers, Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallee, and Laurel and Hardy.
the building
Vaudeville house to RKO screen. The building passed from Chase to B.F. Keith's vaudeville circuit, then the Keith-Albee-Orpheum chain and RKO Pictures, tracing the consolidation of American live and film entertainment through a single Washington theater.
the style
De Sibour designed the theater and its adjoining office building in the Beaux-Arts style.
More on Beaux-Artsthe architect
Jules Henri de Sibour designed the theater, completed in 1912.
significance
RKO sold the building to Morris Cafritz for $1.55 million in 1956. The theater closed in 1978 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places; that year the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts recommended saving its facade along with that of the National Metropolitan Bank.
nearby
- National Metropolitan Bank
- Commercial National Bank
- Westory Building
- Hotel Washington
- Willard InterContinental Washington
- Treasury Department