By Jim Hayden
Correspondent
The final curtain call for a Saugatuck barn that hosted summer plays for almost 50 years is coming in 2026.
The former Red Barn, at 6357 63rd St. northeast of town, is expected to be razed and replaced with an extension of the neighbor event venue.
The Grant Collection LLC opened the adjoining Emerson Lodge, which hosts weddings, corporate events, rehearsal dinners and other celebrations, in January 2025.
The Grant Collection also owns the Ivy House in Saugatuck and Port 393 in Holland.
The Laketown Township site was previously home to Guardian Brewery, which closed in 2024.
The owners of the Emerson Lounge are proposing removing the barn that housed the former theater but keeping the adjoining silo. A new structure will be built for enhancement of the event venue.
“The barn has been determined to be unoccupiable in its current condition and is also past the point of being reasonably salvageable for the intended use,” the company wrote in an Oct. 28, 2025, memo to the Laketown Township Zoning Board of Appeals.
On Dec. 17, the ZBA approved a dimensional variance request for the proposed building for reduced setbacks from neighboring property.
Plans for the new structure must still go before the township planning commission. No date for demolition has been set, though spring is possible.
About the Red Barn
The Red Barn Playhouse was founded by James Webster in 1948 in Douglas, according to a May 26, 1988, article in the Commercial Record. In 1953, Webster purchased the current site which was part of the Belvedere Estate. The barn was built in 1921.
“The barn was filled with livestock and corn at the time of purchase,” the article said. “By the spring of 1954, however, he had converted it into the present Red Barn and opened it in June of that year.”
The theater went through several ownership changes and was at one point enlarged to hold 500 people.
The theater closed in 2002, according to the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center. It was an antique store before becoming the brewery in 2017.
