What Schantz Preserves During a Rebuild

A published record settles that a project happened and roughly when; it does not settle what was retained. The Organ Historical Society’s Pipe Organ Database carries a single year, 2007, for the Schantz project at the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, while the university’s own account describes funding secured in 2005, work commencing in 2006 and rededication on 7 June 2008. One case cannot tell you whether a database year is the contract year, the completion year or an editorial choice, but it does show that a single-year field can hide a project span, and a committee comparing a record year with an invoice date or a dedication program should expect the mismatch.

The heading can also hide whose material survives. As of September 1, 2026, a Pipe Organ Database rebuild record can carry the same opus number as the original instrument by the same builder: one record reads ‘Schantz Organ Co. (Opus 2209, 2023)’ over ‘Originally Schantz Organ Co. (Opus 2209, 2003)’, and another reads ‘Schantz Organ Co. (Opus 1889, 2023)’ over ‘Originally Schantz Organ Co. (Opus 1889, 1989)’. Where a rebuilder’s opus number is the record’s primary identity while a large, quantified share of the surviving material is an earlier builder’s, the instrument’s identity is legitimately contested and cannot be settled from documents alone. Write down what each layer is and who made it, and leave the naming question open rather than letting the heading answer it for you.

Record both figures with their sources, and do not average them. The University of Chicago states that the rebuilt Rockefeller Chapel organ contains 8,565 pipes across 132 ranks; the Pipe Organ Database records the same instrument as 131 ranks and 8,560 pipes. Neither figure is preferred here. Rank and pipe counts can differ according to what is counted and when the count was made, so an owner’s file should carry each published count with its source and its date, and a proposal should be scoped from a count made at the instrument rather than from either published figure.

The condition history explains why the decision is being made at all, and it belongs in the file beside the inventory. Rockefeller Memorial Chapel records that after mid-1970s alterations its E. M. Skinner Opus 634 ‘gradually deteriorated due to numerous water leaks and lack of sufficient funding to maintain its aging reservoirs and windchests’ and was shut down by 2001, before the Schantz restoration that returned stored original Skinner pipes to use. That is one instrument’s history, not a pattern, but it names two things an owner can document without any tools: where water has reached the organ, and which maintenance was deferred and for how long. A condition survey at the instrument, not a page like this one, establishes what those conditions did to your chests and leather.

A Schantz rebuild does not by itself mean the existing pipework is replaced. Two trade notices in The Diapason document the opposite. At Trinity Lutheran Church, Ashland, Ohio (Opus 2343, dedicated April 2022), an all-new mechanism was built and the console rebuilt with a modern control system, while 27 ranks of the previous Moller and Schantz pipework were revoiced alongside 20 new ranks. At Central Baptist Church, Newnan, Georgia (Opus 2338, reported complete November 2021), eight stops from a 1924 Henry Pilcher’s Sons organ and a 1959 Moller rebuild were reused with new pipes, facade, mechanism, layout and a three-manual moveable console. Two projects establish that retention happens; they do not establish how often, and neither tells you what will be proposed for your ranks.

Retention can also mean returning pipes that are not currently in the organ. Rockefeller Memorial Chapel states that in the restoration of its E. M. Skinner Opus 634, original pipes held in storage were restored, replica pipes were carefully constructed to replace ranks that had been lost or severely damaged, and twenty-two new ranks were added in the style of other Skinner university organs. Keep those three categories apart in your own inventory: restored originals, replicas of lost ranks, and new ranks in a period style are three different answers to the question of what is original, and the chapel’s account is careful not to conflate the last two.

In the documented Rockefeller project the original console case, the original chancel windchests and the original reservoirs were all kept. The university records that the chancel console was completely rebuilt inside its original hand-carved case designed by the chapel’s architect Bertram Goodhue, that all original Skinner chancel windchests and reservoirs were restored, and that a new two-manual gallery console was added; the same undated page says both consoles and the entire electrical system use current technology, so the case is original and the control inside it is not. That split, cabinet and chests retained and control layer renewed, is one an owner can ask about by name.

Severance Hall shows retention on the scale of a whole instrument. The Cleveland Orchestra’s archives record that the 1930 E. M. Skinner Norton Memorial Organ (94 ranks, 6,025 pipes) was housed at Schantz from 1997 to 2000, with all pipes and machinery removed and reinstalled and new facade pipes built, and was reinstalled behind the stage in 2000 with a rededication in January 2001.

Even here the record names new material, the facade pipes, so a project summary that says restored is not the same as one that says all original; the file should list what came back and what was made new. Rockefeller’s own account adds that Schantz was selected for the chapel work on the strength of large projects, naming the relocation and restoration of the Severance Hall Skinner organ in Cleveland; that is the chapel’s reason and not a rule for choosing a firm.

New mechanisms, new consoles and new ranks appear in the same documented Schantz projects that retained original material. Ashland received an all-new mechanism and a rebuilt console with a modern control system; Newnan received new pipes, facade, mechanism and layout and a three-manual moveable console around its eight reused stops; Rockefeller received twenty-two new ranks and a second console.

Second Presbyterian Church, St. Louis records a 2012-2015 renewal of its 1965 Schantz instrument in which pipework was refurbished at the Orrville shop, internal chest mechanisms were re-leathered, reservoirs were refurbished, the console was completely refurbished, and two stops were added. A Pipe Organ Database record for Schantz Opus 1684, compiled from information supplied to the database, states that in 2008 Schantz removed all of the pipes and transported them to Orrville for cleaning and regulation, re-installed them, and added three Walker digital stops. Each is one project; together they say only that a rebuild can include additions, and that an addition is a decision to be made and recorded rather than an assumption.

Other firms have worked on Schantz instruments, and Schantz has worked on instruments by other builders, so the original builder’s name does not tell you who carried out the last campaign. A regional firm’s published instrument list records that in the 2022 digital expansion of a 1993 Schantz instrument at the American Fork Utah East Stake Center the original stop action magnets were replaced with new ones; the listing is undated and covers a project that also added digital voices, so it is not a pure control retrofit.

Quimby Pipe Organs’ published scope for the 1971 Schantz instrument at Country Club Christian Church records cleaning of the reed pipes’ resonators, tongues and shallots, adjustment and polishing of the tuning wires, and new inserts and new scrolls cut in matching the original slotting formula. Both listings are scopes of work on a specific instrument as their authors describe them, and the detail worth noticing is that the new scrolls were cut to match the original slotting formula.

In the other direction, Schantz’s commercial repair page, as read on August 31, 2026, claims fluency in mechanisms by Skinner, Aeolian-Skinner, Aeolian, Moller, Kimball, Kilgen and others. Read that as a dated capability claim and nothing more: it establishes no authorization, certification, present capacity, parts access or performance on any instrument, including yours. The Rockefeller and Severance projects are documented Schantz work on Skinner instruments; that documentation, not the page, is what an owner can weigh.

Professional opinion on how to treat an original combination action is genuinely divided, and published projects and guidelines do not agree on a single answer; Rockefeller’s rebuilt console, an original case with current control technology inside, is one answer among several. The positions, and what each one means for a Schantz console, are set out at Schantz Console and Control Development, Restoration, and Modernization.

Which builder the surviving material belongs to, how a name change or a reused opus number shows up in a database record, and what records exist to check are questions for Finding Schantz Specifications and Records. How the firm’s windchests and actions work, and why that matters to what a releathering campaign involves, is explained on the mechanism pages reached from Schantz Organ Company, which is also where the firm’s identity and name chain are set out. Nothing here diagnoses your instrument; a condition survey at the console and inside the chests does that, and its findings, not a published project, decide the scope. Scope, price and schedule for that survey and for any work that follows are project-specific and belong to a written proposal issued after technical and logistical review; the details below are the place to start that conversation.