Designed by Detroit-based architect Maurice Finkel and built in 1927, the historic auditorium seats 1,610[2] and features the theater's original 1927 Barton Theatre Pipe Organ, orchestra pit, stage, and elaborate architectural details.

The theater not only showed movies, but also hosted vaudeville acts, live concerts, and touring stage plays.

The instrument also has various tuned and untuned percussions and a standard “toy counter” of special effects to aid in film accompaniments.

It was repaired and began receiving regular use in the early 1970s, and factored significantly in raising strong community support to save the historic theatre when the original lease expired in 1978.

In regular use since that time, the marginally-adequate original blower failed in early 2014 and was rebuilt with a larger custom motor and new impellers.

The instrument was completely rebuilt and restored to like-new mechanical and tonal condition by Renaissance Pipe Organs of Ann Arbor between 2018 and 2020, with the console and relay having been updated to reliable solid-state in 2014.

[3] The inner lobby still retains original details, including a barrel-vaulted ceiling, Romanesque columns and arch decorations, wood paneling, and wrought-iron balcony and staircase railings.