People tour the Catlow Theater to see the progress on the restoration of the 1927 theater in Barrington late last month. | John Starks/Daily Herald
By Steve Zalusky | Daily Herald
A sleeping giant in downtown Barrington is gradually emerging from its slumber.
As the Catlow Theater heads toward its 100th birthday in May, the downtown Barrington movie house is about halfway toward reaching its $6 million fundraising goal, said Brian Long, president of the Catlow 1927 Foundation, the nonprofit group spearheading the project.
The foundation is working to restore the theater, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Long and his wife, Julianne, bought the theater in 2022, two years after it closed.
Its latest fundraising effort, a match campaign, was launched last month, with an anonymous donor matching all contributions.
Long, who owns Long & Co. Jewelers and Long Story Short Pub in downtown Barrington, is guiding the project with a businessman’s sensibility.
“It’s not if, it’s when,” he said, emphasizing the project will be run responsibly. “It will be done.”
“We’re not going to sign contracts that we can’t afford,” Long said. “The good news is this. The Catlow Foundation is a foundation, but the person steering the ship is a businessman, and he is running it like a business.”
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