Cherry Grove Community House
The Cherry Grove Community House and Theatre are among ten National Historic Landmarks representing LGBTQ+ civil rights struggles in the United States. That distinction alone signals what this building means — but the story behind it runs even deeper.
In 1946, the Cherry Grove Property Owners Association floated a carriage house across the bay to construct a community house, and a 1949 addition became the Cherry Grove Theatre. What followed was extraordinary: it became the first American venue to feature productions by gay people for gay and straight audiences. Veteran directors and theater performers including Frank Carrington, Cheryl Crawford, and Carson McCullers provided creative direction, while Broadway and Hollywood actors performed on its stage.
In 2013, the Cherry Grove Community House and Theatre was named to the National Register of Historic Places for the enormous role it played in shaping what gradually evolved into America’s first gay and lesbian town. The Cherry Grove Theatre remains the oldest continuously operating gay summer theater in the United States.
To screen films here is to screen them inside a piece of American queer history.
Whyte Hall
Where Whyte Hall stands, there has always been something worth gathering around. The site traces back to 1854, first as a life-saving station in what was then called Lone Hill, later taken over by the Coast Guard, and then repurposed as a patrol headquarters during World War II. When the Fire Island Pines community took shape in the postwar decades, the building became its communal heart — a place for civic life, health services, community gatherings, and performance.
The hall was named in 2002 for John B. Whyte, the model and real estate entrepreneur who did more than almost anyone to shape Fire Island Pines into the iconic queer destination it became. Funded largely by his estate, a completely reconstructed Whyte Hall was completed in 2007.
Today, the Brandon Fradd Theater is a 172-seat theater that can be configured in a variety of ways for screenings or performances, and the Albert Lepage Outdoor Pavilion is a stunning canopied outdoor deck suited for open-air performance or events. With over 200 events hosted each season, Whyte Hall has been home to Broadway Cares’ Broadway Bares in the Pines, the Fire Island Dance Festival, and Women’s Pride in the Pines, among many others. Grove & Pines Film Festival is proud to bring queer cinema to this stage.