– G’day, my name’s James Sutton from McGrath, and today I’m inside a Roseville Institution to talk about it’s fascinating evolution over the years from being the local Town Hall to a Church to a Prep School and in 1919, a Cinema. The building here, at 112 Pacific Highway in Roseville was originally constructed in 1912 by Nellie Neil as a Community Hall. By 1913, the hall had been rented out on Sundays only to be used as the local congregational church. This continued until 1915 when a new church was built on Shirley Road. Apart from Sundays, it ran as the local town hall for official community meetings, as well social events, including dancing. When World War 1 broke out, the Town Hall was used as the first Australian centre to recruit soldiers for the war effort. From 1915 to 1918, the building was run as Miss McEwing’s Roseville Preparatory School for Girls, which also moved to Shirley Road in 1918. Then in 1919 after World War 1 had finished, the Traynor Picture Palace was established here. It was around that time that the golden age of cinema started to evolve. Apparently, there was a rollerskating rink here for a while. Nellie Neil retained ownership and in collaboration with the pioneer of Australian film production, D.B. O’Connor, made substantial renovations just before World War 2. The renovations created an art-deco style and increased seating capacity to 500. During the war, the cinema became extremely busy, it became the main weekly entertainment for local people, as the movies got more sophisticated in their storytelling. The cinema also became the main source for news about the war. In 1953 Nellie Neil’s niece, Kathleen Mitchell inherited the property, selling it in 1969 to a company called Alarm Facilities, who had also bought the local Hammonds Butcher Shop.

In 1974, Hans Van Pinxteren bought the cinema. Hans’s father had been a film projectionist in the Netherlands, but emigrated to Australia after the devastation of World War 2. Young Hans got a job working for Paramount and Universal Studios taking movie stars around Australia. When he bought the Roseville Cinema he injected a great promotional flair making it a very, very successful business. When “Crocodile Dundee” launched he created a live crocodile display here at the cinema. When the cinema launched Bertolucci’s “Last Emperor”, he dressed all the staff in Chinese uniforms and he himself wore a white tuxedo with a skull cap and a long tassel. He would hide prizes under the cinema seats as well as greet and farewell the customers personally. On his passing, in 1986, his wife and family continued operating the business undertaking a large refurbishment in 1995 to become the Twin Cinema, and then again in 2011, state-of-the-art digital technology replaced two ageing projectors. The Roseville Cinema is undoubtedly an iconic landmark for the area, and I think it’s really important to keep the story alive of how it’s evolved. Back to the modern day, and we’re delighted to have finalised the sale of 40 Roseville Avenue just before Christmas, on Boxing Day, in fact, after it had been on the market with many local agents over the last few years. The property changed hands in the vicinity of $10 million, which was the highest sale price for a property marketed in Roseville during the year. I’ll continue digging up stories about Roseville over the coming weeks and months so stay tuned