#106: Upstairs Downstairs

An Upstairs Downstairs story of a different sort.

In the 1940s, close friends of my parents turned the downstairs of an old carriage house in Santa Barbara into a three-bedroom apartment. John and Mary raised their two kids in it and rented out the two caretaker apartments that were above it. John managed The Fox Arlington Theater and I remember hearing my folks tell of going to Club Chico, an exclusive spot inside the theater where one could dine while watching the movie, something which I imagine was quite novel at the time. The architecture of The Arlington is quite extraordinary and, back in the day, used to be a place where glitzy debuts of Hollywood movies took place, but when I was a young girl I didn’t think of it as anything other than the place we watched double features on Saturday for thirty-five cents.