ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From: Rick Veague, January, 2001
I have the organ from the Odeon Theatre in Savannah, Georgia. It was
origionally a 2m - 7r EX installation, then moved to a Baptist church in
Jackson, Georgia. From there it went up to Chicago, down to Sarasota,
Florida then to St. Petersburg, Florida in the early 70s. It was erected
there and played, then sold and put in storage (again) till 1993.
It now resides in a private residence in Waldron, Indiana. I was with
the instrument thru much of its life. A post horn and piano have since been
added.
After a total rebuild in the early 70s, the organ played in a 600-seat
auditorium in a music store in St. Petersburg, Florida. This lasted for a
few years until the business was sold and the organ went back in storage.
The percussions are not the origional. The xylophone, chimes and chrys are
Welte, glock is Barton and the marimba/harp is Kilgen. The traps action was
missing but I made a new one. What happened to the Wurli stuff, I don't
know. A WurliTzer post horn and upright piano are additions.
Am I the owner? In a round-about way, yes. It is in a large stone house down
the road from me. I installed it there in '93 and is to be willed to me when
the elderly owner passes on. The house will be a county museum and I will be
the curator of the organ and Indian relic museum on the estate.
It's really a confusing story since my involvement with the instrument. At
the music store where I was a salesman, the owner wanted a WurliTzer for the
auditorium for promotional/concert/silent movie purposes. My friends in
Sarasota had just moved there from Chicago and brought the organ with them
still crated. The instrument was traded for a new WurliTzer home electronic.
I installed it in the auditorium and played it for all its concerts and
movies. After the business was sold, back into storage it went for 14 years
until I got a phone call from Indiana one day. The prospective buyers came
down to Florida and saw the instrument in storage and said they would buy it
if I came along and put it in their house. Well, since '93 I've been in
Indiana living here after the installation (which took two years). The house
the organ is in was specially designed when built to hold a
small-to-medium-sized instrument. The chamber is on the second floor which
speaks and mixes into the Great Room below where the console and piano are.
The blower is in the basement.
Overall, a very nice sound -not cramped of muffled, and the instrument plays
off a complete MIDI system also.