“The Garden Theatre”

Downtown Kalamazoo Theater (1919) (never built)

North side of East South Street, between Burdick Street and Farmers Avenue (Farmers Alley) (119 East South Street). Proposed but never built.

In 1913, theater magnate W.S. Butterfield announced plans to erect a new $50,000 “real de luxe ‘movie’ theater” (Gazette) in Kalamazoo, including a $5,000 pipe organ, but the project never materialized.

Six years later, Butterfield again announced more defined plans for a new motion picture house to be located along the north side of East South Street on the “Cleveland Property” (former Goodale funeral parlor), directly across from his Majestic Gardens vaudeville theater. Work was scheduled to begin on May 1, 1919, and be completed by September in time for a Labor Day opening.

Plans called for a 75 foot x 113 foot theater building with mezzanine seating for 200 and main floor seating for 900. A pipe organ would be “especially built and installed” (Gazette), along with an eight-piece orchestra. While primarily a motion picture house, a stage was also planned for special attractions. Safety exits would be provided leading to Farmers Alley.

Butterfield’s “Garden Theatre” project coincided with renovation of the Academy of Music, which was to become the Regent. While working with Chicago architect John Eberson on the Regent, Butterfield was said to be “completing arrangements” for work to begin on the Garden theatre by the first of May, but those plans never materialized. For reasons yet unknown, the theater was never built.