Larkin Administration Building
By Jim Heyworth, forwarded by Karl Petersen
Forwarded from a letter last year (!) from Piporg-l list:
> From: Jim Weisenborne <JJWEISEN%OCC.bitnet@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU>
> Subject: Larkin Administration Building>
The organ that was installed in the Larkin Administration Building was a Moller of about 60 or so ranks. If you need more details, let me know. The organ had attached to it a Moller Artiste player and a 9' Chickering piano. The Larkins originally purchased the organ from Moller with the understanding that they would be getting a fully automatic reproducing player organ unit. Moller had no such player. But they didn't tell Larkin that. Instead, they hired Mr. Frederick Hoschke to design their rolls. Larkin even gave him a room in the building to lay out the rolls. The player unit was originally built on site and installed in the 4-manual console. The Larkin organ was played frequently over the radio and there were several AGO meetings in the building.
How do I know this? Well, Allen Organs didn't get everything from the factory. I rescued all the Moller master rolls, correspondence, organ registration sheets and player parts a few years before Moller went out of business. And just in time, too. The roof of the shed in which the rolls were stored had already begun to collapse. Last year I donated the master rolls and the perforator to The Music House in Traverse City, Michigan where they plan to create an exhibit and connect an Artiste player to one of the pipe organs.
I still have all of the original correspondence, however. What interesting reading.
Jim Weisenborne |
(Message sent Thu 7 Mar 1996, 03:37:08 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.) |
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