Sunset Drive-In
155 Porters Point Road,
Colchester,
VT
05446
155 Porters Point Road,
Colchester,
VT
05446
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According to a comment on the site of the Fairlee Motel and Drive-In, the Sunset has now opened up a motel. A check of the Sunset web page indicates this is not correct. There is a motel at the foot of the property, however.
Rather than closing at the end of August the Sunset soldiered on thru early January when the weather became prohibitive. They plan a March reopening.
opened with “Rudyard kipling’s Jungle Book”.
And despite all those changes, Seven Days wrote in 2013 that Ernest and Dorothy Handy bought the drive-in from a developer in 1948 and ran it until their retirement in 1979, when son Peter Handy took over ownership.
Also, the Sunset’s “Sunset in the News” page (pdf) is a photo of the Lake Champlain Weekly from July 2008, and it says that Peter added those two screens in 1980, then added the fourth in 1994.
Mallet’s Bay is listed separately on Cinema Treasures. It was open for a lot of the same years as the Sunset, which the Motion Picture Almanacs and Theatre Catalogs listed under Burlington. (The MPAs also eventually listed Mallets Bay under Burlington.)
Here’s what my Theatre Catalogs say about the Sunset.
1948-49: owner John Gardiner, Sunset Amusement Corp., capacity 300 vehicles. The Sunset was the only drive-in it listed for Vermont in that edition.
1949-50: John Gardiner, 300.
1952: D. Handy, and Daytz Th. Entr., 600.
1955-56: D. Handy, and Affiliated Ths. Corp., 600.
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And here are the details from my MPAs.
1952-53: Daytz Theas., 600.
1953-54: Daytz Theas., 416.
1955-59: H. Young, 416.
1961-66: Sunset Amuse. Corp., 416.
1969-76: 416.
1982: M. Jarvis, 500.
1984: P. Handy, 1 screen
1986-88: P. Handy, 3 screens.
June 5th, 1981 grand opening ad as a 3-plex in the photo section. Burlington Plaza, Century Plaza, Burlington Drive-In all got one more screen each during April-June 1981.
May 29th, 1948 grand opening ad in photo section.
The Sunset Drive-In has made the conversion to digital. Address: 155 Porters Point Rd, Colchester, VT 05446
PLEASE UPDATE ADDRESS # TO 155.
Don’t have the addresses in that almanac.
Cool photo of the SUNSET DRIVE IN Lost,and what was the address Mike?
Was this drive-in called the MALLET’S BAY DRIVE-IN.That is all i can find in my 1956 motion picture almanac.
The link for the official website has been changed:
http://www.sunsetdrivein.com/