Switching Between 16:9 and 2.35:1 - Is an Anamorphic Lens Required?

We're buying a new house and we get to start from scratch with our finished basement - home theater; here we come! So as per usual I am doing my homework now - we move in a couple of weeks but likely won't get started on the new HT for another couple of months or more, so no better time than now to start my research.

I've done just about enough reading thus far to really mess my head up - projector specs, lens shift, focus memory, anamorphic lenses, need to clear some things up before I can move forward. So, if I wanted to go for that true theater experience, picture-wise, I'd likely go for as big a screen that makes sense in my space - maybe curved, if that makes sense - and for movies I'd surely want to be able to display that 2.35:1 aspect ratio without black bars on the top and bottom. Some viewing would be HDTV from cable, or gaming, so 16:9 would be used from time to time (I could use curtains to crop the sides of the screen when viewing 16:9) but I'd really like to have no unusual stretching or compressing (or any picture distortion for that matter) when going from one aspect ratio to the other.

How can I do this within a reasonable budget? By reasonable I mean up to $3k for the projector, and if a lens is required to get that true anamorphic thing going, then, well, I reckon I'd have to budget another $2k - $3k for that anamorphic lens, no? So maybe around $5k total for this light-throwing machine.

Not even talking about a screen yet - still need to get hard measurements on the new space and measure ambient light and such - lots to do still, but wanted to know how to go about getting the best of both aspect ratios - doing it the right way - and keeping the $$$ under control. Looked at Epson already, but still don't know enough about projectors to speak intelligently yet, so I will start with the questions above.