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From Dave Brigham:

My only experience inside this amazing architectural specimen in Boston's Back Bay was when it was a Waterstone's book store, back in the 1990s. I don't remember whether I bought anything at the store, and I can't recall anything about the interior of this place, which is on the corner of Newbury and Exeter streets.

Over the past few decades I've heard and read about how this place was a movie house in a previous life. But until I stood in front of it with camera in hand, I had no idea that it started life as a church.

"FIRST SPIRITUAL TEMPLE" is what that fancy script says.

Built in 1884-85 by the architectural firm of Hartwell and Richardson, the former church is a fine example of Richardsonian Romanesque. This design "is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson," per Wikipedia. "The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish and Italian Romanesque characteristics."

The Richardson who designed the temple is no relation of the much more well-known H.H. Richardson.

The temple was built for the Working Union of Progressive Spiritualists (!), which was founded in 1883 by Marcellus Ayer, a wholesale grocer, according to the Back Bay Houses web site. The congregation continued to use the building in whole or part until 1975, when the church moved to nearby Brookline. Since late 2018, the First Spiritual Temple has gathered in a leased building in West Harwich, on Cape Cod, per the church's web site.

From 1914 to 1984 the building housed the Exeter Street Theatre. Ayer and his wife, Hattie, operated the theater until 1930 (Marcellus died in 1921). The theater, which screened movies, had nearly 1,400 seats. In subsequent years, businesses inside the building included not only Waterstone's, but also TGI Friday's Restaurant, IdeaLab and Conran's Furniture. A fire that started in TGI Friday's in 1995 seriously damaged the building.

Currently Joe's American Bar & Grill occupies the basement and greenhouse level, and the main part of the building is home to the Kingsley Montessori School. On September 22, 1985, the First Spiritual Temple celebrated its Centenary Anniversary. The building's cornerstone was removed and the contents of original time capsule were given to the church, per the church's web site. A new time capsule was placed behind the cornerstone, to be opened in September, 2085.