Whimsadoodle, Inc., the foundation established from the estate of Barb Marshall, granddaughter to the founder of Hallmark Cards, has entered into a lease and management arrangement with an option to purchase the Historic Park Theater from long-time owners and operators Jenna MacGregor and her mother Sharon Seeley.
The construction of the 112-year-old theater predates the establishment of Rocky Mountain National Park and the incorporation of Estes Park as a statutory town.
Over the past 111 years, the theater has witnessed two World Wars, the arrival of the atomic age, the Cold War, the Korean War, the building of the Berlin Wall, the assasination of a president, the Vietnam War, the erection of the World Trade Centers, the resignation of a president, the demolition of the Berlin Wall, Operation Desert Storm, the destruction of the World Trade Centers, and the War on Terror.
Technological advances have included telephones, televisions, home computers, smartphones, social media, and artificial intelligence. We have progressed from the horse and buggy to the automobile to airplanes and rocket ships that have carried people and satellites into outer space, and 12 people have walked on the surface of the moon.
Science has developed antibiotics and vaccines, discovered insulin, invented medical imaging techniques, and refined lifesaving surgical procedures, including organ transplants.
Throughout this epoch, the Park Theater has weathered hurricane-strength winds that have gusted to more than 100 m.p.h., was inundated by the Lawn Lake flood that decimated Estes Park’s downtown corridor, and withstood the threat of the East Troublesome Fire and evacuation of the Town.
It has undergone expansions and renovations, including the addition of the front lobby and the five-story-tall tower that rises 68 feet above street level.
Constructed as a motion picture theater the same year the horror film “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was released, the Park Theater has witnessed seismic technological changes in the industry. Over the past century, movies have gone from silent films to talkies. Today’s films utilize object-based and Dolby surround sound to provide audiences with a three-dimensional, immersive sound experience.
Films have also evolved from black and white to color with the invention of Technicolor in the 1930s, and with the shift from celluloid as a medium to digital, accompanied by the additional wizardry of computer-generated imagery and artificial intelligence enhancements.
The Historic Park Theater has endured significant economic trials, including the Great Depression, the Great Recession, the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919, and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2023.
Changes in audience habits, high ticket prices, rising overhead costs, and the way production companies release films today, with many films quickly going to home-streaming services, have made it difficult for many indie movie houses, such as the Historic Park Theater, to survive. Box office revenues have fallen dramatically. In the U.S., ticket sales in 2024 were down 23.5% compared to 2019. Over the past five years, approximately 5,700 movie screens have gone dark, representing a loss of around 12% of the total number of screens before the pandemic.
To survive, some theaters have shifted from a for-profit to a nonprofit model and marketed their auditoriums for more than just first-run movies, including corporate meetings and worship spaces.
During the past year, MacGregor has shown many classic movies for free and sold concessions to fill the theater. She also offers tours of the theater that share its history, including stories about the ghosts she claims inhabit the building.
The next chapter of cinema, community, and creativity
As stewards of the Historic Park Theater, Whimsadoodle will make significant investments in the building to update the facility, said Victoria Endsley, a spokesperson for the foundation, in an interview with the Estes Valley Voice.
The nonprofit organization has hired architects and engineers to review the site and prepare plans for interior and exterior renovations, including updating lighting and other interior finishes, making the restrooms ADA-compliant, mitigating asbestos, strengthening the framework of the iconic tower, and restoring the neon lighting that outlines the Art Deco façade.
The foundation’s purpose is “to promote the arts in Estes Park by investing in programs and activities that enable artists to thrive,” said Endsley. Under the care of Whimsadoodle, the theater will continue to show films, host live performances, and feature other community events.
Whimsadoodle’s priorities include increasing access for artists and creatives to housing, studios, collaborative workspaces, and venues for exhibitions, performances, and retail.
“We are incredibly grateful to Jenna and Sharon for their years of stewardship and for entrusting the future of this treasured place to Whimsadoodle,” said Walter Dietrich, president of Whimsadoodle, Inc.
“Their care and commitment have ensured the Park Theatre remains a living, breathing part of our downtown and our shared heritage.”
According to Dietrich, renovations that will honor the soul of the theatre while preparing it to serve future generations with enhanced facilities, expanded programming, and increased accessibility are expected to begin in the spring.
As a nonprofit organization with tax-exempt status, Whimsadoodle welcomes community support and donations to help preserve, restore, and expand the theater’s programming.
MacGregor, who knew and admired Marshall and considered her a friend, said she is happy with the Whimsadoodle deal and looks forward to working with the foundation in the transition.
Marshall was a patron of the arts who championed the Estes Park creative community. She came to know and love the Estes Valley as a Cheley camper in her youth and moved here after college, where she developed a retail and real estate business. She died in 2024.
An early “pre-fab” building
The Historic Park Theater is recognized as the oldest single-house motion picture theater in the U.S. Designed in 1913 by architect J.R. Anderson for the Estes Park Town Company, a local development company owned by a group of landowners and business investors, including Anderson and Cornelius Howard Bond.
Building began in 1913 and was completed in 1915. Parts of the building were constructed in Longmont and brought to Estes Park for installation. According to MacGregor, wood used to frame the building was cut to size and numbered in Longmont and then assembled on site. The numbering can still be seen on many of the studs.
Shortly after its completion, Bond and his wife, Alma, purchased the theater from the development company and then sold it to Fred Jackson in 1915. A July 1920 news account in the Trail Talk, a community newspaper published during the summer tourist season, reported that Bond and Ole Rugtwet, a Longmont real estate developer, managed the theater.
Rugtwet died in 1922, and Walter Ralph Gwynn, a newspaper reporter, projectionist, and inventor from Longmont, bought the theater from Jackson that same year. Gwynn pioneered a method to record music for films on phonograph records, then amplify and synchronize it to the movie, eliminating the need for a theater to hire an organ or piano player to provide musical accompaniment.
Between 1927 and 1929, however, the movie industry transitioned from silent films to talkies, which embedded sound directly within the film itself, making Gwynn’s invention moot.
In 1929, Gwynn constructed the tower situated on the west side of the building. The structure, 68-feet at street level, is said to be a monument to his fiancée who jilted Gwynn at the altar – beautiful on the outside but hollow on the inside.
The north side of the tower is decorated with a giant neo-classical Palladian arch with a tripartite window outlined in green and white neon. Some historic records indicate that, at one time, there were also red neon lights adorning the arch.
Following Gwynn’s death in 1963, Vic Walker purchased the theater from Gwynn’s estate. In 1981, Ola and R.L. “Mickey” Stanger, MacGregor’s grandparents, who had operated the theater since 1968, bought the theater from Vic Walker.
Three years later, in 1984, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. MacGregor moved to Estes in 2012 to take over management of the family business.