Designed by architects Weeks and Day, the theater was built at a cost of US$300,000 (equivalent to about $5,330,000 in 2023) with construction starting in 1924.[3][4] It had a Leatherbury-Smith orchestral organ installed with pipes ranging in size from a toothpick to a 32-foot pipe providing sounds for stringed instruments, trumpes, flutes, saxophone, clarinet, and various percussion instruments.[5] The Theatre opened on June 9, 1925 with a showing of I'll Show You the Town after a dedication speech and had a capacity of approximately 1500.[6] By the 1960s the Theatre was on hard times, the organ had been removed and the interior was not cleaned to a degree that, "many moviegoers flatly refused to enter the place, no matter what was showing."[7] In 1987 after the death of Fred Astaire, David Woodley Packard had a film festival of Astaire's works at the theatre. The two week festival was so successful that his father, Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard, agreed with Woodley Packard's idea to purchase the aging theatre through the Packard Foundation.[8][9][4]
It was purchased in 1987 for $7.7 million and restored by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation at an additional cost of $6 million for a 1989 grand opening of The Wizard of Oz.[10] The restoration process included examining over 5,000 sketches to match the original color pallet.[11] Part of the restoration included installing an organ to replace the original which had been sold as parts. The process took 2 years to obtain and restore parts which included the 1926 console from Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the organ's 1928 pipes from Loew's Theatre.[12] The Theatre was renovated in late 2017 with repainting, new carpets, and the seats being restored with new padding and mohair coverings. It reopened that December with a showing of The Wizard of Oz[13]
The Stanford Theatre is currently managed by Cyndi Mortensen and operated by the Stanford Theatre Foundation, led by David Woodley Packard.[7][14]