The Vero Theatre in Vero Beach, Florida

The Vero Theatre is the 1924 Mediterranean Revival movie house at 2036 14th Avenue in downtown Vero Beach, later called the Florida Theatre and, since 1991, Theatre Plaza.

The Florida Division of Historical Resources survey of historic places, in a copy archived in 2007, describes the Vero Beach building as the first motion picture theater in town and one of the few remaining structures of the original downtown, a two-story building with a flat roof, parapets and walls finished in stucco, designed by the architect F.H. Trimble.

Its significance goes beyond film. The National Park Service NPGallery record for the Vero Theatre, reference number 92000421, lists commerce, entertainment and recreation, and architecture as areas of significance, with 1924 and 1937 as significant years, and shows a publication date of April 28, 1992. The state survey records the National Register listing as 1992. The building has not shown films since 1985.

The Vero Theatre opened on October 20, 1924, with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the state credits its construction to the Vero contractor James Hudson Baker.

The opening date comes from the City of Vero Beach history timeline, which also describes room for 850 seats, including two boxes on either side and a full-size orchestra pit, and names The Hunchback of Notre Dame as the first movie shown. Vero was then still part of St. Lucie County, five years after the City of Vero was incorporated in 1919.

The builder was a Vero contractor recognized by the state. The Great Floridians 2000 program records that James Hudson Baker, born in 1866, moved to Vero Beach in 1912 and became a building contractor who built many commercial and residential buildings in the city, including the Vero Theatre Building and the Farmers Bank Building. Baker died in 1951, and his Great Floridian plaque is located at the Vero Theatre Building at 2036 14th Avenue. The design is credited to F.H. Trimble, the architect named in both the state survey and the National Park Service record.

Official accounts tie Indian River County's 1925 creation to frustration with St. Lucie County's Sunday blue laws, but none of the city or state records checked for this page names the theatre itself.

The City of Vero Beach historic preservation history page says that in 1925 a number of Vero's most prominent citizens successfully lobbied in Tallahassee for a new county they named Indian River, that Vero was designated the county seat, and that it was re-incorporated and renamed Vero Beach. The city timeline adds that a new charter created the City of Vero Beach on May 19, 1925, and that Governor John W. Martin approved the bill creating Indian River County from the northern half of St. Lucie County on May 30, 1925.

The Florida Department of State, in a release naming Main Street Vero Beach the November 2025 Florida Main Street Program of the Month, says residents dissatisfied with St. Lucie County's restrictive Blue Laws prohibiting alcohol and entertainment on Sundays sought greater freedoms and established Indian River County in 1925, after which the town became the new county seat and was renamed Vero Beach. Sunday entertainment is the link to a movie house, but the state release does not single out the Vero Theatre, and neither does the city's history page or timeline.

The house took the name Florida Theatre and showed films under it until it closed as a movie theater on June 20, 1985.

The City of Vero Beach timeline calls it the Florida Theatre, formerly known as Vero Theatre and later named the Theatre Plaza, and the state survey lists the building as the Florida Theater. The National Register record lists 1937, alongside the 1924 opening, as a significant year.

The film era ended in the mid-1980s. The city timeline records that the Florida Theatre closed as a movie theater after 61 years on June 20, 1985, with Desperately Seeking Susan as the final movie shown, and that on October 24 to 26, 1991, the newly restored Theatre Plaza, site of the old Florida Theatre, was unveiled with apartments upstairs and retail space downstairs. The City of Vero Beach National Register page still lists the Vero Theatre among the thirteen properties for which the Historic Preservation Commission reviews National Register nominations.

The theatre stands in the middle of downtown's 14th Avenue, in the block Main Street Vero Beach calls the Theater Plaza Quadrant, between 21st Street and 20th Street.

The Main Street Vero Beach downtown guide divides the avenue into four blocks: the Pocahontas Quadrant at the northern end between 23rd Street and 21st Street, with Pocahontas Park and the Heritage Center; the Theater Plaza Quadrant between 21st Street and 20th Street; the Seminole Courtyard Quadrant between 20th Street and 19th Place; and the Towne Plaza Quadrant between 19th Place and 19th Street. The Vero Theatre gives its name to the second of those blocks.

Several neighbors share its early history. The state historic places survey describes the Pueblo Arcade, two stories of masonry built in 1926 by the local contractors Blackford and Davis, as part of the rapid development of the commercial center that followed the fire of 1919. The Old Vero Beach Community Center at 2146 14th Avenue, built in 1935, served as a social gathering place, playhouse and meeting hall. Main Street Vero Beach, which the Department of State says was formed in 1998 by a group of downtown redevelopment advocates, promotes this downtown from an office it lists at 2046 14th Avenue.

No cinema operates in the building today.

The city timeline records the last movie in 1985 and the 1991 conversion to Theatre Plaza with apartments upstairs and retail space downstairs, and the state survey, in its copy archived in 2007, described the building as presently vacant and privately owned. Neither official source gives a more recent account of how each floor is used.

What has not changed is its place on the street and in the record. The building sits in the block Main Street Vero Beach calls the Theater Plaza Quadrant, the central stretch of 14th Avenue between 21st Street and 20th Street, and the plaque honoring its builder, James Hudson Baker, is located at the Vero Theatre Building, according to the state program's archived listing.

Last verified: October 15, 2026, against the National Park Service NPGallery record, the archived state historic places survey and Great Floridians listing, the City of Vero Beach preservation history, National Register list and 1919 to 2019 timeline, the Department of State's Main Street release and Main Street Vero Beach's own pages.