Marfa
For decades, the Palace Theater’s vertical sign has continued to rise over North Highland Avenue, announcing a movie house that no longer shows movies.
The Art Deco facade, green marquee and tall blade sign remain among downtown Marfa’s most recognizable landmarks. Behind them, however, the building has not operated as a regular cinema since the 1970s.
Filmmakers Anna Rau and Corbett Jones are now planning its next act.
The pair closed on the Palace on June 18 through Palace Marfa LLC, an entity they formed for the purchase. The seller was Ellen Kimble, who lived in the building for about 30 years with her late husband, David Kimble, the technical illustrator known for his cutaway drawings.
Rau and Jones plan to revive the Palace as an art house cinema, bar and lounge, production and post-production facility and artist residence. Major construction is expected to begin before the end of the year, with an opening tentatively planned for late 2027 or early 2028.
“We’ve renovated enough old buildings in Far West Texas to offer that date in pencil,” Rau and Jones wrote in response to questions from Big Bend Sentinel. “Our priority is to finish the rebuild right and give the space the respect it deserves.”
The project would return regularly scheduled movies to a building that began as the Marfa Opera House around the turn of the 20th century. It would also establish a new base for filmmaking in a town long associated with the movies but without a permanent operating theater of its own.
For Rau and Jones, the Palace represents the convergence of a long personal history with Marfa and a professional plan years in the making.
Rau first fell in love with Marfa as a child, the couple wrote. In 2008, she brought Jones to town on spring break while the two were film students in Boston. They continued returning on cross-country drives, married in Marfa in 2016 and bought a house in 2017 while working on a documentary about the Trans-Pecos Pipeline.
“The move to Far West Texas to invest in local cinema was always the plan,” they wrote.
With that goal in mind, Rau enrolled in the MBA program at the University of Texas at Austin to pair 15 years of filmmaking experience with formal training in finance. She graduated in May. The couple originally planned to move to the area, find land and build a media campus from the ground up.
Then, in January, Jones drove past the Palace, became curious and looked up the owner. The next morning, Rau saw “coming soon” posted across the facade on Instagram. They turned their car around and were the first prospective buyers through the door.
“What we felt standing inside was a surreal homecoming,” they wrote. “Every separate thread of our lives ran through that room: the films, the renovations, the advanced degree, 17 years of returning.”
The plan, they said, was never dependent on the Palace. But the building gave it a historic home.
“We just never imagined we would be lucky enough to house the dream in Marfa’s own historic movie palace,” they wrote.
According to Rau and Jones, the building needs a full gut renovation. Little from its years as a cinema remains inside, apart from a few features, including exit lights, a stairwell that once led to the balcony and four original theater seats.
What did survive, they said, is the 1937 facade and marquee.
“We are excited to restore [them] fully and faithfully,” they wrote.
Design and pre-construction work are already underway, along with clearing and cleaning the building. The couple is working with Lemmo Architecture and Design, or LA-N-D, whose architects they described as longtime friends with their own regional ties.
Rau and Jones declined to disclose renovation financials, but said they worked with Marfa National Bank on the acquisition and are pursuing federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credits.
“We’ve spent our careers watching cultural institutions pass into hands farther and farther from the people they serve, and we’ve seen what that distance does,” they said. “Our bank is down the street from our marquee. That was on purpose.”
Unlike some phased redevelopment projects, Rau and Jones said the first phase of the Palace will include the whole concept: cinema, bar and lounge, production and post-production facilities and artist residence.
“The idea only works whole,” they said. “Films shot in Marfa have always premiered a thousand miles away; we want work made here to be finished here and shown here.”
Longer-term plans include an annual festival, an education hub and a digital subscription offering that would carry the Palace beyond its walls.
The Palace began as the Marfa Opera House in 1905, according to the National Register nomination for the Central Marfa Historic District. At the time, it was reportedly the only theater between El Paso and San Antonio.
Its early uses extended beyond opera. The venue hosted dances, concerts, speeches, revival meetings, graduations, roller skating and other public gatherings before motion pictures became its primary attraction.
The building became the Palace Theater around 1930. Its geometric facade, raised central parapet and vertical sign reflected the Art Deco style and the optimism of local business leaders who anticipated further growth in Marfa.
A fire destroyed the Palace and the neighboring City Hall in 1937. Both buildings were rebuilt, and the theater reopened within months. The reconstructed Palace held roughly 700 people, several times the capacity proposed for the new cinema.
It continued showing films until the early 1970s. A Texas Historical Commission photograph taken in 1978 shows the Palace with its marquee, central ticket booth and poster cases still intact.
The Palace was not Marfa’s only movie theater. The Texas Theater operated across Highland Avenue, while Teatro de Libertad provided another entertainment venue in South Marfa.
The history of those buildings also reflects the racial divisions that shaped public life in Marfa. Fête Marfa, a nonprofit formed around an earlier effort to restore the Palace, has described it as a whites-only institution before desegregation. Its materials identify the Texas Theater as a predominantly Mexican theater that showed Spanish-language films.
For Rau and Jones, the revived Palace should serve a broader audience.
“We intend for The Palace to be multilingual,” they wrote. “Mexican cinema won’t be a special occasion here; it belongs in the regular repertory, from the Época de Oro classics to filmmakers working on both sides of the border today.”
They said they aim to operate seven nights a week, with regular free community screenings through a nonprofit arm. Plans also include children’s matinees, filmmaking camps, workshops taught by working filmmakers, an annual high school film competition and local events.
“The event space belongs to the town’s own life: gatherings, celebrations, the milestones of a community that has been missing its landmark for 40 years,” they said.
The production side of the Palace is also intended to serve both visiting filmmakers and the local economy. The building will include a small soundstage, post-production suite, offices and lodging.
“Productions have come to Marfa for 70 years, and every one has had to bring everything with it and haul it all home again,” Rau and Jones wrote. “We can’t change that overnight but we can make being here easier, and worth staying longer for.”
They said any working production will be able to book the spaces, while the residency and grants will be selected through an open application process. Their long-term goal, they said, is for education to become employment.
“The student in a summer workshop becomes the crew member on a visiting production and becomes the filmmaker in residence,” they wrote.
Before Rau and Jones completed the purchase, Fête Marfa had promoted a nonprofit campaign to acquire and restore the building. Its website described an $800,000 acquisition goal and plans for a cinema, cafe, educational programming, residencies and a film festival.
Rau and Jones said they have no current relationship with Fête and were unaware of its plans when they made their offer.
“That said, we’re happy to know there’s appetite and energy for this kind of programming in Marfa and our doors are always open to those who share our same goals,” they wrote.
For now, the Palace remains closed, its name still suspended above Highland Avenue as plans take shape behind the facade. Before audiences return, Rau and Jones must determine how a smaller theater and a broader set of uses will fit beneath one historic roof.
When the Palace finally reopens, the couple already knows what they want to show first: Giant.
“It was never a question,” they wrote.
Rau first traveled to Marfa through the film as a child, years before she ever set foot in town, they said. It later helped push her toward filmmaking.
“We love that both Giant and The Palace are a celebrated part of this town’s history,” they added, “and we’re looking forward to throwing a big celebration for the whole town on opening night.”
Until then, the Palace’s longest-running attraction remains the building itself — and the possibility that, after decades in the dark, its marquee may once again carry the name of a movie.
