HOULTON, Maine – After the owner of Houlton’s historic 1919 Temple Theatre on Market Square recently purchased the renowned Masonic Building that houses the cinema, he is looking to give the structure a major facelift.
The 7,000-square-foot art deco building and theater have been part of the downtown landscape for more than a century, and as part of a renovation, owner Fred Grant and his staff will take elements of its original architectural design and integrate them into the front of the building.
“We are creating an architecturally appropriate face,” said Grant, who also owns Market Pizza and WHOU 101.1 FM. “The theater doors will be replaced with higher-end theater doors versus commercial doors, and there will be a flat front to the building.”
The Temple Theatre is one of Maine’s oldest continuously operating theaters and the only one north of Augusta with laser projection, Grant said.
Grant also now owns the second floor of the building, which is a combination of apartments and offices. But through an agreement, the Masons still own the building’s third floor, as they have since 1918.
In 2023, the theater almost ceased operating when previous owner Charles Fortier announced its imminent closure, citing lower attendance, higher wages, higher product costs, difficulty finding staff and Hollywood pressures.
In an 11th-hour move, Grant bought the theater and tackled its challenges, vowing to replace projection and sound systems, enhance concession offerings, adjust showtimes and add live events and streaming performances.
“When Charles Fortier announced the imminent closure of the Temple Theatre, my heart sank,” Grant said at the time. “The thought of losing such a foundational piece of our community was unbearable.”
It was the second Aroostook County movie theater saved from closing that year. Mike and Pat Cyr of Limestone purchased the Caribou Theater from former owner Arlen Dow who was planning to close because of costs and declining attendance.
An admitted lover of films, with a personal collection of more than 10,000, Fortier owned the Temple Theatre for seven years. He also owned the Masonic Building until the recent sale.
He purchased it from Mike Hurley after entering an international essay contest created by Hurley.
When Grant took over the Temple Theatre in 2023, he was leasing the space from Fortier. But after making extensive modifications to the building, he and his team reached a point at which further progress would require buying it.
Renovations so far have included adding kitchen equipment and a three-bay sink to serve food, beer and wine. They added six heat pumps for year-round heating and cooling. They replaced existing projectors in the two theaters with laser projectors, installed interior digital signage and enhanced the audio system.
Since purchasing the theater space, Grant is poised to begin painting it within the next month and replacing carpeting throughout.
“We are having the carpet custom made,” he said, adding that because of the building’s age he wants to make sure the designs are appropriate for an art deco building.
And the facade work will follow.
The windows will have architectural features you can currently see on the building’s third floor. The marquee will stay but the front will be flat. Grant also plans to create an air lock so patrons will come through the front doors into an enclosed entry and then into the lobby to improve the comfort and aesthetics of the theater, he said.
“We’ve seen a huge uptick in people coming in and a lot of people from outside of town,” Howe said.
The theater is bringing back Lost on a Mountain in Maine this Friday and will be surpassing 4,000 tickets sold for that film, Howe said.
The theater plans to offer more of the live events that have been successful so far, said manager Jason Howe, adding that 2024 was a great year for attendance, hitting records not seen in more than two decades.
The increased theater traffic has translated into more people coming downtown, Grant said.
“We’ve seen a huge spike in traffic at Market Pizza. We know that more people are downtown than have ever been there before because we see them, we count them.” he said. “We opened the Temple so we could be a destination for people’s entertainment, and it’s been great to see on the weekends where Market Square is full of people.”
