LEMPERT, Leon Jr. (1867-1934), an American expert in the design of public theatres who is credited with originating the 'bowled auditorium' type of theatre after which most modern show buildings were patterned. He was the son of Leon Lempert Sr. ( -1906), a prominent Rochester N.Y. architect who had lived in worked in Buffalo, N.Y. until 1898. In that year he opened an office in Rochester called Leon Lempert & Son, and they designed several theatre buildings in Boston, Rochester, New York City, and in Buffalo and elsewhere in the easter United States.
In Canada, their most important commission was for Shea's Hippodrome Theatre, Toronto, designed for Michael Shea, a prominent theatre entrepreneur from Buffalo, N.Y. Costing $250,000 and clad in brick and elaborate terra cotta panels and trim, it offered seating for nearly 3,000 patrons, and was, at the time of its completion, the largest indoor theatre in Canada. Lempert Sr. retired in 1906 and died in 1909 (obit. American Architect & Building News [New York], xcv, 26 May 1909, 11). Lempert Jr. continued to oversee the work of Lempert & Son from 1906 onward, and died at Pasadena, Calif. on 14 January 1934 (obit American Architect & Architecture [New York], cxliv, March 1934, 119; biog. Carl Schmidt, Architecture and Architects of Rochester, N.Y., 1959, 149)
OTTAWA, ONT. public theatre, Wellington Street, 1901 (C.R., xii, 20 March 1901, 3)
TORONTO, ONT., Shea's Theatre, Victoria Street at Richmond Street East, 1909; demol. c. 1960 (C.R., xxii, 4 Nov. 1908, 27; xxiii, 1 Sept. 1909, 35, illus. & descrip.; Toronto b.p. 13959, 16 Feb. 1909; Canadian Engineer [Toronto], xix, 7 July 1910, 10-14, illus. & descrip.; dwgs. City of Toronto Archives, PT 122C)
HAMILTON, ONT., theatre for Dominion Theatres Ltd., 1913 (C.R., xxvii, 5 Feb. 1913, 71)
TORONTO, ONT., Shea's Hippodrome Theatre, Terauley Street at Bay Street , 1913-14; demol. c. 1960 (C.R., xxviii, 15 April 1914, 459-60, illus. & descrip.; Const., viii, April 1915, 144-50, illus. & descrip.)