ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From: Merle Bobzien, April 2006
In (approximately) 1987, the organ was sold to myself by Loyola and was
relocated to the social hall of St. Cross church in Hermosa Beach,
California. It was installed under the stage, was playable and was used
for theater organ performances (including at least two Halloween
'Phantom of the Opera' played by Gaylord Carter). My contract with the
church was supposed to be for 10 years, but the church renig'd after
five years, saying that they wanted the space for storage. I removed the
organ and it went into storage in El Segundo, eventually being relocated
to storage here in Big Bear Lake, California. The intention is to put
the organ back into a playing condition, but it will be in a facility
over which I have control (location yet to be determined). As I have
assembled/disassembled/moved this organ more than twice, I have to
desire to enhance my lifespan by endlessly moving the thing.
As far as the instrument itself goes (and this is the only accurate
information):
The organ served in the Manchester Theater in South Central Los Angeles
and was purchased by Bud Wittenberg in the 1950's from Fox West Coast
Theaters. One of the principals for the sale (on the Fox side) was Rube
Wolf, brother of Fanchon & Marco. Bud installed the organ in his Beverly
Hills home and the installation was apparently pretty awful. Since the
chamber was in the basement, he chopped some of the offset chests into
pieces (stuffing in end plugs) to get them to fit. [All of this
vandalism has been reversed by me.] The acoustic properties of the
installation were like a box of Kleenex or worse. In addition, Bud
swapped the Kinura for a Brand-X Post Horn, the bottom six pipes being
90 degree mitred. The console is NOT the original one (and I don't know
what happened to it). The console (which was supposedly identical) is
from the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles. Bud also jacked up this
scalloped-lid console and stuffed in a third manual on the top, having
only four stops and some percussions. Bill Thompson recorded two albums
in this location: "A Quiet Evening With The Mighty Wurlitzer" and an
album of Rogers & Hammerstein tunes. There's lots of info about the
organ in the liner notes for "Quiet Evening..."
In the 1970's, Bud sold the house and donated the organ to Loyola
Marymount. It was first "installed" by Richard Martin and Jay Himes,
neither of which knew their arse from their elbow when it came to
building an organ. I became involved with the installation and they
faded from the picture. I maintained the organ at Loyola for a number of
years, almost completely reinstalling the organ, re-specifying the stop
list (done by Ken Kukuk and Lyn Larsen), removing and selling the old
mechanical switch stack (which I regret now) and installing the first
commerical Trousdale electronic relay.
One of the first things done was to knock out that useless third manual
and take out the 4" spacers that made the whole console look top-heavy.
As Ken Kukuk said, we put it back "like God and Hope-Jones intended."
When I installed the organ at St. Cross, I added an Estey 16' set (44
notes) as the bottom of the Tibia Clausa [it never had one originally]
augmenting and doubling the 8' and 4' already there. Wittenburg had
discarded the 16' octave of the Tuba. I have a Moller 16' tuba set which
I may add unless I find a suitable 12 notes of real Wurlitzer metal
tuba. Since Wittenburg had discarded at least half of the original
shades (and the boobs Martin & Himes cut down some of the remainder), I
bought a double set of studio shades from Bill Brown of Phoenix, around
1987 and half of these were used at St. Cross.
With the exception of the tuned sleigh bells (which was sold), the traps
and percussions are all there and original. The organ will be installed
intact, although I intend to add more ranks which will be playable by a
second 3-manual console. As much of the original instrument that remains
will always be kept so it may be separated.