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Considering it took a unicorn to save it from demolition, it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Fox Fullerton Theatre, one of Orange County’s oldest and most architecturally significant venues, turned 100 in May and remains at least $18 million from a full restoration that began over 20 years ago.
It took a fiscal miracle – a $700,000 check from an anonymous donor in November 2004, something so rare that in the world of philanthropy it is referred to as a unicorn – to save the Fox. Since then, it’s been a long and frequently grueling restoration process, from raising money and navigating city bureaucracy to reminding the community that the vision for the Fox – reopening as a modern, multi-purpose entertainment venue as close to its original 1925 grandeur as practically possible – remains intact.
But for the first time since a small group of community members banded together in 1997 to begin their fight to save the theater, the arduous crusade may have reached a tipping point.“It finally feels that the wind is at our back,” said Todd Huffman, a board member of the Fullerton Historic Theatre Foundation, the nonprofit organization that owns the theater. “People seem to be starting to fully believe this can happen.”
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