Better Pipe Organ Database

Doug Eyman (1986)

Westgate Baptist Church
2235 Harrisburg Pike
Lancaster, PA

Images

2019-10-16 - Console (Photograph by Jeff Scofield/Database Manager)

2019-10-16 - Console, chancel and chambers (Photograph by Jeff Scofield/Database Manager)

2019-10-16 - Sanctuary interior (Photograph by Jeff Scofield/Database Manager)

2019-10-16 - Left Stopjamb (Photograph by Jeff Scofield/Database Manager)

2019-10-16 - Right Stopjamb (Photograph by Jeff Scofield/Database Manager)

2019-10-16 - Coupler rail (Photograph by Jeff Scofield/Database Manager)

2019-10-16 - Builder name plate (Photograph by Jeff Scofield/Database Manager)

Consoles

Main

Organ type: Traditional With Roll Top
Console position: Console in Fixed Position, Right
3 manuals
29 stops
36 registers
4 divisions
Key action Type: Electrical
Stop action Type: Electrical
Stop layout Type: Drawknobs in Vertical Rows on Angled Jambs
Manual compass: 61 notes
Pedal compass: 32 notes
Pedal Type: Concave Radiating (Meeting AGO Standards)
Has crescendo
Combination action: Adjustable Combination Pistons
Has combination thumb pistons
Has combination toe pistons
Has tutti thumb pistons
Has tutti toe pistons

Notes

2004-10-30 - Status Note: There 1986 -Database Manager

2004-10-30 - From the Brooklyn (NY) Art Museum. Restored c. 1986 by Douglas Eyman & church members. Historic Organs Recital 12 Dec 1986. -Database Manager

2006-05-09 - Updated through information adapted from E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner Opus List, by Sand Lawn and Allen Kinzey (Organ Historical Society, 1997), and included here through the kind permission of Sand Lawn: Restoration of E. M. Skinner Opus 758 (1929), originally installed in The Brooklyn Museum. The organ was given to Westgate Baptist Church, Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1975; during removal organ was stolen by organ technician and installed in private home; after discovery and court trial, finally installed in church in 1986; restored by Douglas Eyman; extant. -Database Manager

2013-02-10 - Updated through online information from William Dunklin. -Database Manager

2019-11-01 - Opus 758 is alive and well, tonally unaltered. The organ was "stolen," but not "restored." To make a very long story shorter, Opus 758, a III/29 E. M. Skinner, was originally given to the Brooklyn Museum in 1929 (dedicated by Lynwood Farnum) by the wealthy Blum family, with the condition that the Museum could never dispose of it by selling it, but instead must donate it to a church. The Museum chose to eliminate the organ in 1975, and the newly-formed Westgate Baptist congregation was given ownership of it, and engaged a local "organ-person" to transplant the organ from Brooklyn to Lancaster. Probably thinking the local "hicks" would never notice, he put the Skinner in a cohort's home, and installed a hodge-podge of warehouse-clearing ranks in the spacious chambers of the newly-built church. When this double-switch was discovered, the church reluctantly went to court and won back possession of their Skinner, but they neglected to sue for the additional expense of another organ-transplant, and the church's budget for same was near zero. Douglas Eyman guided some dedicated volunteers from the congregation, one everning a week over the next seven years, to pack, move, re-leather-as-necessary (about 25 percent) and install the Skinner. The organ was re-dedicated by the late Earl Miller in 1986, and continues to receive benign neglect from the congregation, except that the increasingly unreliable orginal combination action has recently been replaced with a solid-state system by the local firm of R. J. Brunner & Co. The organ has been awarded an OHS Preservation Plaque, -Database Manager

Stoplist

Source: Stoplist from the console and from the Aeolian-Skinner Archives Date not recorded

     Lancaster, Pennsylvania
     Westgate Baptist Church

     Skinner   Op. 758   1929   3/33
     _________________________________________________

     GREAT                          SWELL

 16' Bourdon            17 PD    8' Concert Flute   73
  8' Diapason           61       8' Gamba           73
  8' Flute Harmonique   61       8' Gamba Celeste   73
  8' Erzähler           61       8' Dulciana        73
  4' Octave             61       4' Flute           73
 II  Grave Mixture     122       8' Clarinet        73
  8' Tuba Mirabilis     CH       8' English Horn    73
  8' French Horn        61          Tremolo
     Chimes             21       8' Tuba Mirabilis  73
     Blank                          Blank

     SWELL                          PEDAL

  8' Diapason           73      32' Resultant       --
  8' Rohrflöte          73      16' Diapason        32
  8' Salicional         73      16' Bourdon         32
  8' Voix Celeste       73       8' Octave Diapason 12
  8' Flute Celeste II  134       8' Gedeckt         12
  4' Flute ⌂            73      16' Trombone        32
III  Mixture           183      16' Waldhorn        SW
 16' Waldhorn           73          Chimes          GT
  8' Trumpet            73          Blank
  8' Corno d'Amore      73
  8' Vox Humana         73
  4' Clarion            73
     Tremolo
     Blank

      [Received from Jeff Scofield November 1, 2019]

Related Pipe Organ Database Entries

#23514†* - Skinner Organ Co. Opus 758 (1929)