76-Year-Old Brick Building Across from Former North Main Theater Is Ready for Its Stuccover Too

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

Workers have begun attaching wire netting to the façade of the 4,344-sq.-ft. retail-turned-office building at 3715 N. Main, which county records indicate was built in 1940 and a nearby resident believes once served as a post office for the adjacent neighborhoods of Norhill and Brooke Smith. The netting is in advance, it appears, of a new stucco or stucco-like overcoat for the brick-front structure.

The Iglesia de Restauracion, an affiliate of El Salvador-based pentecostal ministry Mision Cristiana Elim Internacional, bought the building last fall; previously it served as the law offices of voting-rights attorney Frumencio Reyes. In stuccoing the structure, the neighborhood church will be following the pattern established earlier with the successive stuccovers of its own main sanctuary building, the former North Main Theater across the street at 3730 N. Main.

Here’s how that movie theater, which was built in 1936, once looked:

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North Main Cinema, 3730 N. Main St., Brooke Smith, Houston

And here’s a view of the theater-turned-church as it appeared in 2009, shortly after its second stuccover:

Iglesia de Restauracion, 3730 N. Main St., Brooke Smith, Houston

You can catch a glimpse of the church’s main building — as it appears now — in the left background of this photo of the law-office building:

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

The back side of the 3715 N. Main building had been stuccoed previously, but appears to be getting a new coat now as well:

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

3715 N. Main St., Norhill, Houston

Photos: Patrick Feller (Iglesia de Restauracion) [license]; Jack Coursey/Cinema Treasures (N. Main Theater); Rachel Dvoretzky (all others)

Famous Beige Overcoat

6 Comment

  • And the theft of property taxes continues. Claiming to believe in the absurdities written by middle eastern goat herders is a profitable business.

  • I agree cs. It makes no sense to let these institutions suck off the city services for free. I could possibly see the logic of not paying the school district, but they are getting away with too much for the sake of political correctness.

  • @commonsense & erhed… Solution ? Elect someone who will repeal tax-exempt status for houses of worship.

    Good luck with that.

  • Yes, yes, currently it’s impossible to elect someone who will yank tax exempt status from the cults, technically you can’t even be elected to office in Texas without professing belief in a ceiling cat. (Unconstitutional but hasn’t been challenged yet). Easiest way would be to wait it out, millennials are already majority non-religious, one more generation and this whole nonsense will be thrown in he garbage bin of history. In the mean time FFRS is attempting to bring tax exempt statuses to SCOTUS on the grounds that such a broad tax exemption is unconstitutional and amounts to endorsement of religion by the government.

  • Oh my. I had never seen a picture of the old theater before. I had no idea. What a tragedy what they did to that building.

  • These latin churches are the worst offenders as far as destruction of architectural integrity. I recently saw a original building with a classic exterior and an intact 1910 interior in CA that was gutted and remade in their typical over-the-top gaudy style. For God’s sake, show a little intelligence, awareness and respect for existing architecture.