It was named after opera singer Amelita Galli-Curci, who summered at her historic country estate near Margaretville from 1922 to 1937[2] and sang at its opening night.

It was built by local entrepreneur Clarke Sanford to house two pioneering businesses in the region, a car dealership and silent movie theater and offices of the Catskill Mountain News.

The neighborhood is heavily developed, with the intersection, the village's center, flanked by many three-story mixed-use buildings of a late-19th/early-20th century vintage.

The shorter front section, with the retail space and theater entrance, is a two-story brick structure on a poured concrete foundation.

Local lore has it that after having the Pope-Toledo shipped to Kingston and driving it overland to the village, he crashed it into one of the outbuildings on his family farm in nearby Dunraven.

Seven years later, in 1914, he and a partner opened the first dealership in town, selling Buicks, Fords and Packards from the new building on Bridge Street Sanford had previously had built for the newspaper operations.

It was successful enough, due to a boom in the local economy and a strong business in summertime from resort visitors, that it needed more space.

He offered to name the theater after Amelita Galli-Curci, whose Sul Monte estate was in nearby Highmount, if she sang at opening night in 1922, which she did, closing with "Home!

The offerings included live entertainment as well, from touring companies doing condensed versions of Broadway plays, local theater groups, minstrel shows and school and community functions.

[1] The theater was unable to benefit in the long run because, with the end of World War II, New York City had resumed plans to expand its water supply system and complete Pepacton Reservoir to the south.

In the short run, the large construction workforce buoyed the local economy, but, when the reservoir was finished, the effects of losing five nearby towns, including the Sanford farmstead in Dunraven, made itself felt.

Television also began to cut into film revenues; in 1955, Kallet had the theater modified again to support the widescreen productions studios were turning out to compete with the small screen.

The decline in revenue continued, and in 1963 Clarke Sanford made a successful claim of lost business to the temporary commission set up to compensate those displaced or otherwise affected by the reservoir's construction.