Restoring a Classic Movie Palace
When the Riviera Theater opened in 1927, people in Omaha had never seen anything like it. Designed by the inventor of the “atmospheric theater”, John Eberson (1875-1954), it was an fanciful combination of Italian Renaissance and Moorish Revival.
To add to the overall fantasy, Eberson perched 9 gargoyles high above the street, to observe (and startle) theater goers. After 90 years of “deferred maintenance, the renamed Rose Theater needed a complete $6 million restoration.

In addition to replacing major portions of the exterior terra cotta, Boston Valley scanned the original gargoyle sculptures and reproduced them using traditional sculpting techniques.