Boonton’s historic Darress Theatre on the market

BOONTON – If you could put a price on memories, even Donald Trump could not afford to buy the historic Darress Theatre.

But with owner Tom Timbrook — who has kept the spotlights lit in the one-of-a-kind “reverse theater” since 1980 — ready to move on, the Old Gal can be had for just under a cool million.

Realtor Gordon “Doug” McWilliams, who also happens to be mayor of neighboring Mountain Lakes, has listed the Darress for $995,000. The price includes much of Timbrook’s camera and graphics gear, along with a variety of movie projectors, two movie screens, theater lighting, a baby grand piano, electric piano and other extras.

“This is a rare opportunity to purchase a turn-key theater active in nearly all aspects of the entertainment business,” the listing reads. “Run movies, plays, lectures, concerts of all kinds in a former vaudeville venue.”

Timbrook and his wife hope to retire to a houseboat on the Pacific Coast after decades of restoration projects and countless shows, some successful, some not.

“It’s time,” said Timbrook, sitting in the camera and graphic arts shop he runs in the front lobby of theater near the top of the hill on Main Street, which has enjoyed its own revival as an arts and culture destination in recent years. “We need to stop worrying about the whole ... thing.”

But with the passage of time, and with so many partners and volunteers retiring, moving away or dying, he can no longer keep it going on his own.

“It’s six, seven days a week,” he said. “If I can’t support it anymore, fix it, then what can I do?”

Timbrook admits the nearly century-old Darress — perhaps the only theater still existing in the United States where patrons enter under the stage and walk “uphill” to the back rows — is a fixer-upper. Restoration work is needed inside and out.

After cutting the ground-floor seating in half to open space in back for a lounge and additional workspace, the Darress can seat about 200 downstairs and 400 more in the mezzanine and balcony. But it could be reconfigured to seat close to 1,000 for concerts, film screenings or theatrical productions.

There’s even an apartment in back for resident artists and guests.

“The only limitation is there is not a lot of wing space,” Timbrook said. “So it does not work well for things like dance performances.”

Despite its limitations, Timbrook has staged original musicals, children’s theater, concerts, professional boxing and wrestling matches, lectures and more. Music icons Peter Yarrow and Noel “Paul” Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary fame did a show there late last year. He also has rented it out as a recording studio for musicians and even rappers over the years.

More shows are planned throughout 2015, including a staged radio play.

Abbott and Costello live

Built in 1919, the Darress was a popular destination for residents who came out to see first-run silent films such as “Birth of a Nation” or vaudeville legends such as George Burns and Abbott and Costello.

“It filled a void when it was a blue-collar town, a working town,” Timbrook said. “The vaudeville shows would go on at 11 in the morning and go on all day. It was a place where people could gather. Families, too. Many of our older Boontonites would tell us they would come by, drop their children off, go shop, come back and pick them up. More people told me this is where they met their wife, this is where they got their first kiss.”

The theater’s history is hard to separate from the town.

“The theater was a segregated theater until the late 1950s,” he said. “As I understand it, it stopped one night when the Boonton (High School) Bombers had won a football game. And the team was mixed white and black. They all wanted to come to the theater, and they were told certain ones (whites) would be downstairs and certain ones (blacks) would be upstairs. And the team said no. That was the end of it. It changed right then and there.”

After the end of the vaudeville era, the Depression and World War II, the Darress focused more on movies than stage shows. The rise of multiplex theaters reduced it in the 1960s and ’70s to a discount “second-run” movie house that would offer double features for a dollar or less. But by 1979, the stage and screen at the renamed State Theatre were dark.

Timbrook and his original partners tried to restore it as a first-run house, screening blockbusters such as “E.T.” and “Batman,” but competition from multiplexes in Rockaway Township and Morristown proved crushed those hopes. So he turned his focus towards a goal of providing Boonton with the kind of performing-arts center that would lure people away from the malls and back onto Main Street.

“My original goal, I saw this as a Channel 13,” he said. “My original plan was to call it Windows on Morris County, base on a live radio show coming out of the theater, because we could give them space, and we could have live acts.”

Timbrook hopes to find a buyer or buyers who will carry on his mission to keep the performing arts alive in Boonton.

“We’ve been getting a pretty heavy stream of inquiries,” McWilliams said. “I think it would be ideal for a community-based theater. I’d love to see it become the Boonton Performing Arts Center.”

“Look what the (Mayo Performing Arts Center) did for (Morristown) when they restored it,” Timbrook said. “All those people coming into downtown, going to restaurants, shopping.”

“It’s a big piece of the town and Main Street,” said Boonton Mayor Cyril Wekilsky. “Hopefully Tom can find a buyer who will keep it in the same mode. Anything that will bring people into town is a positive for sure.”

Staff Writer William Westhoven: 973-917-9242; wwesthoven@GannettNJ.com.

Darress Theatre online

Visit www.darresstheater.com for more information and links to the real estate listing.