Mahtomedi, Minnesota

Casavant (Opus 1177, 1927)
Schantz Renovation (2001)

Originally installed in George Washington Hall at the Phillips Academy in Andover MA, the organ was relocated to a new chapel on the campus in 1932 when the burden of the Great Depression prohibited the purchase of a planned new instrument. In this second installation, most of the organ suffered from extremely poor tonal egress with pipes trapped behind walls and facade woodwork. Nearly doomed to become another casualty of the then fashionable “neo-” trends in American organ building, the closeted Casavant survived for almost a half century before the school decided to replace it.

The organ was sold and moved to a barn in Traverse City, MI where it lingered in “temporary” storage for 15 years. Due to the unfortunate damage from years of neglect and the careless loss of critical components, plans for a full restoration of all the chests, console, and mechanisms were abandoned. Instead, all new electro-pneumatic chests replace the original ventil chests. Of the 7,310 pipes of the organ, almost all are restored original pipes and faithful replicas replace pipes deemed beyond repair. Notable yet somewhat typical attributes of this 1920’s Casavant include: 3-32′ pedal stops; 73-note manual chests for most stops, including mixtures and Cornets; Diapason choruses in all divisions; 16′-8′-4′ chorus reeds in each manual division; 3 amply scaled Cornets; and 9-16′ manual stops with only 1 originally borrowed to the pedal, which itself has 14 independent registers.