Comments from CharlesLancelot

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CharlesLancelot
CharlesLancelot commented about Granada Theatre on Nov 2, 2008 at 6:48 am

Hi, Cosimo and family!

This is Charlie Lancelot again, from Notre Dame’s Class of 1962, and the fellow played your Granada Theatre organ while I was a student out there.

I finally tracked the insrument down, and the good news/bad news is that it still exists, but not in its entirety as we knew it back then.

It was originally shipped by Wurlitzer to the Granada on October 14, 1926, so it was installed during the theatre’s construction during 1927. In 1970, two years before the thatre was razed, it was purchased by Dave Junchen, a Wurlitzer organ historian, publisher, collector and rebuilder, who moved the organ to his operation in Sherrard, IN. There, the Granada organ was broken into separate components which were used, believe it or not, by Junchen and his group to assemble the largest Wurlitzer theatre organ ever built – 80 separate sets of pipes (the Granada original had 17) and five keyboards (The Granada original console had three, remember?)

The original Granada 3-keyboard console was not used, of course, and it was sold to a Joe Spur of Chicago. I don’t know when that consle passed from Dave Junchen to Joe Spur, nor do I know what Spur did with it, nor whether he or his estate still have it. I’ll stop searching here as to the console.

Installation of the the monster 5-keyboard organ was completed in the private Sanfillipo mansion in Barrington Hills, IL in 1994, and the dedication concert was given on September 25th, 1994, almost 3 years after Junchen’s death. It is still maintained in perfect condition today, and used regularly for performances in the mansion.

So although the intact organ as you and I knew it is gone, it was not destroyed, and many parts of it’s pipes still play on in the company of the components of other organs in Barrington Hills.

Well, that closes a small but long-open chapter in my life, and on balance I can’t say I’m too disappointed at all!

Best wishes, Charlie

CharlesLancelot
CharlesLancelot commented about Granada Theatre on Jul 4, 2008 at 10:23 am

Hi! Thanks for the valuable update! I had just written a LONG response but wasn’t logged in, so it got blown away when I went to submit it. I don’t have the time to re-write it right now, but will over the weekend. Meanwhile, I’ll get to work once again trying to track the instrument down and learn the identity of the mysterious Texan. Please give my best regards to your Dad. I hope to visit his restaurant the next time I am in town (which is pretty often, the last time at my 45th Reunion in June of 2007, but I didn’t know of Cosimo and Suzy’s then!).

CharlesLancelot
CharlesLancelot commented about Granada Theatre on Feb 17, 2008 at 7:06 pm

What was the disposition of the 3/17 Wurlitzer pipe organ installed in the theater at its opening? Between 1958 and 1962, I played on that organ every weekend while a student at Notre Dame University. I repaired some failed relay leathers and the old flat leather control circuit generator drive belt from main blower shaft. I last played it during a visit to South Bend in early 1964, 2 years after I had graduated. I understand that no buyers were found for the organ and that it was demolished with the theater. Since I no longer remember exactly when it was built, I cannot find it in random searches of the Wurlitzer opus list for the timeframe of the theater’s opening (1927).

The assistant theater manager at the time was Cosimo Rulli, who was promoted to manager at the Colfax Theater down Michigan Avenue shortly after I graduated. I last saw Cosimo during that 1964 visit, but I understand that he is alive and well, running Cosimo and Suzy’s restaurant in neighboring Mishawaka, IN.

I would love to know what happened to the instrument, and if I find that it was indeed demolished, at last I’ll have some closure on it.

Thanks for any light that you can shed on this. Charlie Lancelot