The 7th Street Theatre is taking donations to fund the restoration of its pipe organ, a venture that board members estimate will cost nearly $130,000.
The theater’s original organ, a Wurlitzer Style B theater organ built in 1924, had found its way to Clute, Texas, where it had sat on a porch for years, exposed to the elements, said Ray Kahler, the theater board’s president. Seattle-based Puget Sound Theater Organ Society, which keeps records of organs in the state, helped the theater find the organ.
A team of volunteers went to Texas in 2008 to buy the organ and return it to the theater. Many of the organ’s parts now sit in stacks in a storage area below the theater’s seats.
Having the organ, Kahler said, is a unique trait for the theater.
“It’s kind of unusual that a theater like this would have the original pipe organ,” he said. “Most of them just got parted out and they were no longer of any use.”
The society contacted the theater again in 2012 about another Wurlitzer 1927 Style B found in West Seattle. The organ belonged to Robert “Andy” Anderson, and Al Ticknor, the executor of the Anderson estate, had asked the society for suggestions about where to donate it.
Anderson, a former Boeing engineer, had a love for organs and had redesigned his house to accommodate several.
“He said he would really like for the organs to go someplace where they could be enjoyed by people,” Ticknor said.
Anderson’s organ was originally installed in Everett’s Granada Theatre until 1967, when it was purchased and moved to his home.
After providing advice to theater management for transporting the original organ from Texas, the society in Seattle knew the theater could have a use for the Anderson organ, Kahler said. After meeting with the board in 2013, Ticknor agreed to donate the organ under the terms that it be restored within five years. Without the restoration, ownership of the organ would revert back to the estate.
The restoration, Kahler said, would use parts from the Anderson organ to replace parts in the original. Though the theater isn’t restoring the Anderson organ, Kahler added that Ticknor still approved.
Volunteers packed and shipped the organ to Hoquiam in early 2013.
Although the two organs are only three years apart, Kahler said the Anderson model is in better condition. Additionally, the Anderson organ could provide a number of missing features for the original organ. The original pneumatic controller would also be replaced with a digital controller capable of recording performances to be reproduced by the organ.
Portland-based Rose City Organ Builders provided an estimate for restoring the organ between $100,000 and $130,000. Kahler said using parts from the Anderson organ would keep the cost down. The restoration process would take about six to 12 months to complete.
He added that the organ, when complete, would be played before movies and during tours and the occasional silent film, as well as holiday sing-alongs and accompaniment for choir concerts.
“The biggest thing,” Kahler said, “is that it would just add more to the experience we try to create here of actually taking people back in time to what it was like to go to a theater back in the 1920s and 30s.”
Donations for the organ restoration project can be sent to P.O. Box 777, Hoquiam, WA 98550 with a note indicating “organ.”
Kyle Mittan, 360-537-3932, kmittan@thedailyworld.com. Twitter: @KyleMittan
Donations for the organ restoration project can be sent to P.O. Box 777, Hoquiam, WA 98550 with a note indicating “organ.”
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