It was part of the short lived Picture Palace movie theatre phenomenon. A building with a basic exterior was lavishly decorated internally in the styles of the great architectural monuments and palaces to provide luxurious theatre accomodation at a reasonable building cost.

The building is of timber with rendered brick at either end and along the street. The roof is gabled and clad with corrugated iron and the northern part of the building is supported by tall piers because of the steepness of the site. The theatre foyer and eight retail shops occupy the Latrobe Terrace frontage and feature black ceramic tiles and silky oak joinery.

Internally, the theatre features a large Spanish style proscenium arch heavily decorated with mission tiles and plaster scroll-work and includes the original textile valance embossed with the theatre's name. The ceiling is vaulted, painted dark blue and, unique to the Australian "Atmospherics", features suspended, wooden, cut-out clouds which were originally back-lighted to simulate the moon behind the clouds. Together with lights imitating the stars, this enabled patrons to imagine they were seated out of doors.

Flanking the wide proscenium are ornamental balconies topped by large, arched columns under which used to stand classical style statues. Below the balconies are niches with twisted Roman columns all interspersed with scroll-work and other ornamentation.

The theatre originally seated 1500 on one huge, raked level. It ceased operations as a theatre in 1961 - a victim of television. The raked area has been refloored and the theatre now contains three levels. Despite now housing Paddington Antique Centre, much of the original decoration has been preserved.

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