Starlight Drive-In Theatre

Info Updates:

1/4/2013 - Jon C.

Satellite imagery reveals that the snack bar/projection booth has been demolished for at least the last few years.

1/2/2013 - Susan Carely- Hopkins

My father is Bob Carley and i was just looking up some details about his business ventures in the begining of his career. He is still alive and is doing quite well at age 94. he will be tickled to see this So good to see as much information as there is out there. I too visited the drive in, in my teen years and wish is was still around Thank you all for the memories.

7/10/2011 - Larry Latham

My parents purchased the land just to the south of the drive in about 1975 and built thier dream home. For a 12 year old boy, what could be better than living next to the drive in. I remember, so many nights -where traffic was backed up so far, we could not get into or out of our drive way. It closed about when I left for college, sorry to say - and it is missed.

5/6/2008 - Joe Camfield

I began working at the Starlight as a concession attendant in 1966, and projectionist from 1967-74, working my way through college and beginning a long career with the company that included managing the Vista Drive-in in Grand Rapids and then later becoming District Manager for Concessions with Butterfield. To the best of my knowlege the theatre was built by Robert Carley who also owned and operated at least one of the downtown Holland theatres and built the drive-in to evade the Sunday ''Blue Laws'' then in effect which outlawed the operation of a theatre in Holland on Sundays. W.S. Butterfield bought out Carley Amusement company sometime in the 1950''s and made the company one of its many subsidiaries. Butterfield subsequently sold the Starlight Drive-in as well as the Park and Holland Theatres to Goodrich Theatres in 1983, just prior to the sale of the rest of the company to Kerasotes Theatres in early 1985.

The Theatre provided not only great entertainment but employment for much of my family which, over time, included my uncle and mother who managed the facility throughout the 1960''s and much of the ''70s, but also my brother, sister, aunts and cousins who put in journeyman work at the facility.

During my time at the starlight we played many first-run films, including many Elvis Presley pictures, westerns, comedies and, in the 1960''s motorcycle films. I remember many a weekend where we would nearly pack the 400 car house with these kinds of films, providing entertainment to the community. It was a grand old place, which I''m sure has given a whole generation of local citizens fond memories of a time when you could go out and have fun under the stars.

5/5/2004 - Andrew Wilson AKA The Librarian

I was looking for info on the Starlight DIT in Saugatuck, and I ran across the following in a book called "Off The Record: The Unpublished Photographs of Bill Simmons: A Pictorial History of Saugatuck in the 40s and 50s." Page 84: "The Starlight Drive-In Theatre opened on the Blue Star (note: Old Highway 31), complete with windshield cleaning service, and another short lived drive-in theater with "room for 400 cars" was established at the north east corner of Center and Ferry streets in 1946 by two Chicago fellows by the name of Cox and Smith."

10/16/2003 - MichiganDriveIns.com

The Starlite drive-in in Holland and Saugatuck are one in the same. Best that I can tell, it opened on July 4, 1948. I could not find any other listings of it after 1987. A construction company seems to have taken over the site, with the snack bar/projection booth only remaining.

1/6/2003 - WaterWinterWonderland

The snack bar/projection booth remains, it is enclosed in an industrial facility.