Facade Work Begins at Casino Star Theatre

After a two-and-a-half-year delay caused by the Top Stop gasoline leak that flowed under the historic Casino Star Theatre, the street-side appearance of Gunnison’s 1912 architectural treasure will finally get its long-awaited facelift this spring.

On Thursday, March 18, Philip Kearns, founder and owner of American Heritage Window Rebuilders in Salt Lake City, brought two of his workers to remove the original windows for repair and, where necessary, rebuilding.

“I complimented them on how gently they pried off the trim,” said Diana Spencer, a director of the Casino Star Theatre Foundation, “and they told me it saved them having to make a new part.”

American Heritage Window Rebuilders has restored windows in cathedrals, tabernacles, and Carnegie libraries throughout the west.   With a reputation as the premiere window preservation company in the intermountain west, they were first choice for windows during the restoration of the Utah Governor’s Mansion and the State Capitol.

Phil Kearns is the instructor for Wood Windows at the Traditional Building Skills Institute at Snow College in Ephraim.

The Casino Star Theatre Foundation has engaged 3-D Art in Salt Lake City to restore where possible and replicate where necessary the exterior decorative trim for the windows and arches on the façade.  Jim Sorenson Plastering Stucco & Dryvit of Park City will replace the decayed stucco with a historic recipe of lime-based stucco on a lath base of stainless steel.  The existing stucco of clay and horsehair has lasted ninety-eight years with multiple patches of Portland cement on ninety-eight-year-old wood or sixty-year-old, now rusted, galvanized steel backing.  The new surface should give us a century or more of renewed beauty.

Gunnison’s Main Street Beautification is now underway.  Stay tuned for more.