On June 6, 1933, New Jersey businessman Richard M. Hollingshead opened the very first drive-in movie theater in the country. Located in his hometown of Camden, the first feature film screened was the comedy “Wives Beware”starring actor Adolphe Menjou.
As the years passed, drive-in theaters became a popular dating option among teens, and young parents seized the opportunity to enjoy a night out with their young children in tow. The 1950s and 1960s saw the option flourish.
Apparently, the charm of watching a first-run movie while seated in the privacy of one’s own vehicle is still attractive given the fact that Dutchess County has long been home to drive-in theaters in Hyde Park and Poughkeepsie. In May, a new 125-vehicle capacity drive-in opened in Amenia, operated by the owners of Four Brothers restaurant.
But longtime residents of the eastern Dutchess County town still recall attending screenings at an earlier drive-in that operated in the community, one that held the distinction of being “the smallest drive-in in the world.”
Named the Amenia Drive-In Theater, it opened on Sept. 10, 1965, and was owned by Bynon and Frances Kipp. It was located along Route 44 behind an auto body shop, about a half-mile west of the Amenia traffic signal.
The capacity of the Kipps’ theater was 44 cars. Unlike the high-tech signage that normally identifies a theater today, in Amenia a single light bulb illuminated a small cardboard sign with hand lettering that usually read “Movie Tonight — 8 PM,” along with that evening’s feature film. The sign was fastened to a suspended rope with clothespins.
Rather than showing all the latest films, the venue focused on more vintage and/or B-movies. Knowing that the screen could be seen by passers-by on Route 44, the Kipps favored family-oriented motion pictures so as not to offend anyone.
Upon entering the quarter-acre plot of land that boasted a single 16-foot-by-32-foot plywood movie screen, cars made their way past a combination projection booth/snack shack. The Kipps’ daughter, niece and nephew served snack shack patrons with fresh popcorn, soda and a variety of candy.
“We had a machine that cooked hot dogs with electricity,” recalled nephew Calvin Hotaling. “You’d put a positive or negative thong into either side of the hot dog, close the lid and they were done in about a minute.
“They had an electric taste to them but everybody loved them,” Hotaling said.
Frances Kipp greeted each vehicle, counting the number of people occupying it and collecting fees. During the late 1970s, the cost to attend the drive-in for a family of four would be $4; $1 for the vehicle and seventy-five cents for each of its occupants.
Bynon Kipp manned the projection booth. A longtime employee of the Wassaic Development Center, Kipp also through the years managed nearby movie houses and if one shut down he would purchase its equipment. He amassed a supply of projectors, sound equipment and even old but usable popcorn machines before deciding to open his own operation.
“Bynon Kipp even put an old clunker car on the drive-in grounds so that if anyone in town wanted to walk down to see a motion picture they could just sit in the empty vehicle,” said Ann Linden, archives manager for the Amenia Historical Society.
Dover’s Tony Robert lived about a mile from the drive-in and he and his friends often took advantage of the stationary car option.
“We’d walk down, pay our admission fee and sit in the old car on the grounds,” Robert recalled. “Every time I went to the drive-in there were four or five kids sitting in that car.
“That drive-in theater was a staple of Amenia and there were nights that the place was packed,” Robert said.
The Kipps’ drive-in theater closed in 1983 around the time VHS tapes became popular but Amenia retains its stature as having once been home to “the world’s smallest drive-in.”
