Reuter Organs With Older Skinner or Möller Pipework

Two large late instruments are documented as incorporating substantial pipework from earlier builders. Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh records that its Reuter Opus 2175 of 1994 incorporates the best of the pipework from a 1957 M. P. Möller organ together with ranks from a 1926 E. M. Skinner. The Diapason records that Opus 2218 of 2003 at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Alexandria, Louisiana incorporates 17 ranks salvaged from the previous organ, including 1920s Estey pipework and pipework from the 1970s and 1980s.

A third instrument shows the same practice under a rebuild contract rather than a new-organ contract. The Lehigh Valley chapter of the American Guild of Organists records that the organ at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church passed through four firms: a 1938 Skinner-family organ, a 1969 renovation by the Lehigh Organ Co. that made significant and permanent changes to the scheme and sound, a 1992 Reuter rebuild designated Opus 2163 and contracted to ‘rebuild, redesign, and refurbish the organ, using many of the old ranks of pipes, provide new ranks of pipes to complete the desired scheme’, and Walker Technical Company digital stops added in 1998, reaching 87 ranks on four manuals.

The retained material in Opus 2175 is named down to the octave, and it is a small fraction of the instrument. Shadyside states that the older pipework in its 105-rank Reuter is the bottom octave of the Choir Gemshorn and of the Great Violone from the previous Möller and the bottom octave of the Swell Lieblich Gedeckt from the 1926 E. M. Skinner: three bottom octaves. That precision is what makes the case usable. It shows the scale retention can take in a documented instrument, a few large bass pipes reused inside a scheme that is otherwise new, and it shows why the attribution does not move. Three octaves of another builder’s pipes do not make the instrument a Möller or a Skinner, and a new Reuter contract does not make those pipes Reuter pipes.

The Alexandria case sits at the other end of the documented range: 17 salvaged ranks is a large block of reused material, and the record names their era and one of their builders rather than each rank. Between the two, the documented practice runs from a few bass octaves to a substantial share of the ranks, and the record for any given instrument may name the ranks, name only the builders, or say nothing at all.

A builder name on a published specification page is a label supplied by whoever compiled the page, not an entity attribution, and it can be wrong on its face. The same Lehigh Valley chapter page that documents the St. John’s chain names the 1938 builder as ‘Ernest Skinner Organ Co.’, a corporate style that was not in use in 1938: the Skinner Organ Company had been merged out of existence in 1932, and Ernest M. Skinner’s own separate firm at that date was Ernest M. Skinner & Son. The page remains the public record of what Reuter was contracted to do at St. John’s in 1992, but it cannot be relied on for which Skinner firm built the 1938 organ. For an instrument that has passed through four firms, treat each builder name on a compiled page as a lead to check against that builder’s own records, and treat the quoted contract language as the more specific evidence of what the Reuter work covered.

Reuter instruments built over another firm’s earlier organ are documented across at least 1936 to 1967, so the practice is not a feature of the company’s late years alone. Organ Historical Society Pipe Organ Database records pair Reuter Opus 606 of 1940 at First Presbyterian Church, Chanute, Kansas with A. B. Felgemaker Opus 1062 of 1910; Opus 1021 of 1953 at St. Paul’s Episcopal, Marshalltown, Iowa with Henry Pilcher’s Sons Opus 490 of 1905; Opus 1083 of 1953 at First Baptist, Chattanooga with Hillgreen, Lane Opus 933 of 1928; Opus 1089 of 1954 at St. Paul’s Methodist, Cedar Rapids with Austin Organ Co. Opus 487 of 1914; Opus 1138 of 1955 at First Church of Christ, Scientist, St. Joseph, Missouri with Hook & Hastings Opus 2151 of 1907; and Opus 1309 of 1961 at First Congregational, Beloit, Wisconsin with Aeolian-Skinner Opus 1180 of 1949. Records in the same period also show Reuter work over instruments by Geo. Kilgen & Son, Wm. A. Johnson, California Organ Co., W. W. Kimball and Holtkamp. Each pairing is as the database records it; none has been checked against a contract file or an inspection, and no record states how much of the earlier organ survived.

The practice continued into the 2020s. Reuter’s Opus 2245 of 2021 at San Antonio retained ranks from the previous Visser-Rowland organ, and the company’s own project gallery lists renovations of Möller, Holtkamp, Kilgen and E. M. Skinner instruments and the incorporation of vintage Skinner components. The three late cases already described, Opus 2163 of 1992, Opus 2175 of 1994 and Opus 2218 of 2003, are therefore the well-documented end of a practice the database shows running for decades before them.

As of September 2026, forty-six of the 2,751 records the Pipe Organ Database lists under its builder entity ‘Reuter Organ Co.’ name an original builder other than Reuter, spanning twenty-four distinct firms. M. P. Möller leads with ten records, followed by Aeolian-Skinner Organ Co. with four and Henry Pilcher’s Sons, Austin Organ Co. and W. W. Kimball Co. with three each. Two limits govern what that count means. An original-builder entry records that the instrument at that location began as another firm’s organ; it does not say how much of the earlier organ survives, and it does not capture a Reuter organ that absorbed another builder’s pipework without being recorded as a rebuild, so the true number of composite instruments is at least forty-six and probably higher. And the count is of database records, not of instruments or opus numbers, so it is a floor for how often the practice was recorded rather than a measure of how common it was.

The same records also show Reuter building over Reuter. Forty-eight records carry a current opus number different from the original opus number recorded for the same location, and several of these pair two Reuter numbers: Opus 178 of 1926 over Reuter Opus 124 of 1924 at Central Presbyterian Church, Waco, Texas; Opus 1029 of 1953 over Opus 142 of 1925 at First Baptist Church, Meridian, Mississippi; and Opus 1258 of 1952 over Opus 289 of 1928 at First Methodist Church, Wichita Falls, Texas. Reuter issued a fresh opus number when it substantially rebuilt or replaced one of its own earlier instruments, so a Reuter opus number does not by itself establish that the instrument is new work, and one building can legitimately be associated with two Reuter opus numbers decades apart.

Retention of another builder’s material in a Reuter is documented, where it is documented at all, by a database record that names an original builder and an original opus number for the location, not by any plate or marking on the instrument that states the retention. No described Reuter practice of marking retained ranks, or of recording retention on a plate, is on record, which is why an owner cannot resolve a composite instrument from its markings alone and why the documentation has to be sought outside the organ.

One record shows how thin that documentation can be. The Organ Historical Society Pipe Organ Database records Reuter Organ Co. Opus 2123 of 1990 at Countryside Christian Church, Mission, Kansas as originally a Kilgen instrument, but its ‘Originally’ line names Kilgen with no year and no opus number, while the plate on the instrument gives the Kilgen year as 1957. The Reuter opus number on that record came from the Reuter opus list supplied by Chris Leaver of the company in November 2005, not from anything on the instrument. A record can therefore be right about the original builder and still say less than the instrument itself does about the earlier organ, and it does not say which ranks of that earlier organ are still in the chamber.

The database can express a layered identity, but for Reuter it very rarely does. Each record stores an original builder, original opus and original year alongside the current builder, opus and year for the same location, and it separately flags whether the current builder restored, modified, relocated, added to or rebuilt the instrument. As of September 2026 those flags were set on only five of the 2,751 Reuter Organ Co. records examined. The absence of a rebuild flag is therefore not evidence that no rebuild occurred; the original-builder field is populated far more often and is the more useful signal.

Size figures carry a matching limit. In one worked revision chain, at Lake Park, Minnesota, the 1950 Reuter original record gives 6 ranks while the ca. 1993 and 2022 revision records both give 12, so the rank count on a record describes that revision, not the instrument’s original or current state generally. Read every field on a record as a statement about that record’s layer, and go to the instrument’s own records for the rest; where Reuter factory records and specifications survive, and what each class of record can answer, is covered on Finding Reuter Factory Records and Specifications.

When another firm rebuilds a Reuter, the Organ Historical Society Pipe Organ Database gives that firm’s own opus number as the record’s headline opus and moves the Reuter number down to a subordinate ‘Originally’ line. An opus search on Peragallo Opus 772 returns a single record that reads ‘Peragallo Pipe Organ Co. ( Opus 772, 2022)’ above ‘Originally Reuter Organ Co. (Opus 1368, 1962)’ at St. Malachy Catholic Church, Brownsburg, Indiana, and the record for Northminster Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis reads ‘Schantz Organ Co. ( Opus 2197, 2001)’ above ‘Originally Reuter Organ Co. (Opus 1368, 1963)’. The two numbers on each record belong to different firms and different numbering systems. That is why an opus number alone does not establish who built the instrument in front of the reader: the headline number may be the rebuilder’s, the Reuter number may sit a line below it, and, as the next section shows, one Reuter number can appear on two Reuter records.

The database links these layered records in both directions. A revision record carries a control reading ‘This instrument has multiple revisions: VIEW OLDER (1993) REVISION’, and its notes carry a ‘Related Instrument Entries:’ line naming the sibling records; on the Lake Park record the header reads ‘Moe Pipe Organ Company / 2022 / Originally Reuter Organ Co. (Opus 874, 1950)’ and the related entries name ‘Lance E. Johnson (ca. 1993)’ and ‘Reuter Organ Co. (Opus 874, 1950)’. Recently updated Reuter-related entries include revisions by Austin Organ Co., Peragallo, Bedient, A. E. Schlueter, Burton K. Tidwell, Faucher, Moe, R. J. Rusczyk and Cornel Zimmer, which is a snapshot of recent edits rather than a survey of who works on Reuter organs.

Pipes by other makers also enter a Reuter through this route. A used-organ listing describes a Reuter removed from Peabody College in August 1981 and rebuilt with 276 added pipes built by A. R. Schopp’s Sons. In a case like that the added pipes are the supplier’s and the ranks Reuter built remain Reuter’s: the instrument is a Reuter with later work, which is the reverse of a Reuter that kept an earlier builder’s pipes, and the two should be described separately in any inventory.

One physical organ that began as Reuter Opus 1368 now appears in the Pipe Organ Database under four builder-and-opus identities: Reuter Opus 1368 (1962, AGO Convention, Houston), Reuter Opus 1368 (1963, Northminster Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis), Schantz Organ Co. Opus 2197 (2001, Northminster) and Peragallo Pipe Organ Co. Opus 772 (2022, St. Malachy Catholic Church, Brownsburg, Indiana). The records are cross-linked, and their dated notes explain the chain. The Houston record carries a note of 16 September 2012, attributed to online information from Jeff Scofield, that the instrument was eventually relocated to Northminster about 1963. The Northminster record carries a note of 10 April 2005 that the organ was built in 1962 for the national AGO convention in Houston and later installed at Northminster, citing a Pipe Organ Registry prepared in 1983 by the Indianapolis Chapter of the AGO. The Schantz record states that Schantz added eight ranks, installed a new console and converted the switching to multiplex on the existing Reuter. The Peragallo record carries a note by contributor Jim Stettner of 8 February 2023 that the entry represents the rebuilding, enlarging and relocating of the Northminster organ.

Read alone, the two Reuter records look like an opus number that is not unique within the builder’s own series: two distinct records, both Reuter Opus 1368, each with its own downstream rebuild record by a different firm. Read with the notes, the duplication is neither a numbering collision nor a data-entry error, because both records describe one instrument at two successive locations. That conclusion rests on contributor-maintained records and the 1983 registry they cite, with no factory record inspected, and it says nothing about whether Reuter reused a number elsewhere. The records also disagree with each other: the Peragallo record gives the original year as 1962 and the Schantz record gives 1963, and the Schantz work is dated 2000 in a note on the linked Reuter record but 2001 in the opus year of the Schantz record. Those pairs stand as recorded, not reconciled. The Peragallo record further states 98 ranks and 1,969 pipes, figures that cannot both be right for an instrument of conventional compass, so at least one of them is unreliable.

The evidence that settles the question for one instrument is layered, and each layer answers a different part of it. The instrument’s own records, from the church, the builder’s contract file or the trade press, are the only class of evidence that names retained ranks, and for most Reuter instruments no known record of that class exists. The Pipe Organ Database can say whether the location began as another builder’s organ and whether a later firm has worked on it, subject to the limits above, and it can carry a Reuter opus number that came from the company’s own opus list rather than from the instrument. Examination of the pipework by a qualified technician is what connects the paper to the pipes, because the retention is not marked on the instrument. Nameplate and opus evidence for the Reuter contract itself is covered on How to Identify and Date a Reuter Organ, and the separate 1968 to 1972 attribution question has its own page at The 1968–1972 Reuter Attribution Trap.

For an owner planning work, the useful output of this question is a rank-by-rank inventory that states which ranks are Reuter, which are retained from an earlier builder, and which were added by a later firm, with the record each attribution rests on and with unattributed ranks marked as such. That inventory belongs in the inspection findings and the project documentation before any decision about the instrument’s future, because it changes what a specification for that instrument is describing; the decision itself, restoration against rebuilding, is covered on Restoring Versus Rebuilding a Historic Reuter.