Longwood Garden's Magnificent Organ

Some of you may remember Philadelphia legend Larry Farrari (1932–1997). He was an American organist who hosted "The Larry Ferrari Show" from 1954 to 1997 on WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, a weekly Sunday morning half hour program of organ music.


A huge green fern grows outside the door to Longwood Garden's Ballroom.
I'm sure his spirit is smiling. Recently renovated, Longwood Garden's Aeolian Organ is once again in full magnificent operational splendor.

This is the world's largest "house" pipe organ.

In January, 1929, Pierre du Pont ordered an Aeolian organ for Longwood's new Ballroom. Designed by Longwood's own organist, Firmin Swinnen, a Belgian musician who moved to the US in the 1920s and became a prominent theater organist in New York City, the instrument was custom built in Garwood, NJ, and cost $122,700 ($1,520,879.57 in 2008 dollars).

It has 10,010 pipes divided into 146 ranks (or sets), 237 stops and couplers, five 32-foot pedal stops, and 61 combination pistons. Its 364 percussion tones include chimes, drums, cymbal, and 9-foot Weber concert grand piano playable from the organ console. A Duo-Art roll player could play the entire organ automatically.

The instrument weighs 55 tons and is installed in nine chambers that, together, are 63 feet wide, 23 feet deep, and 40 feet tall.

The chambers are located behind damask-covered openings along the north wall of the Ballroom. Wind is supplied by electric blowers totaling 72 horsepower.


Moller Console, 1959
This 4-manual (keyboard) console was built 1958-59 by the M. P. Moller company of Hagerstown, Maryland to replace the original 1929 organ console. It is made of bleached mahoggany and has 244 keys and 460 controls for the hands, and 32 pedal keys and 40 controls for the feet.

The top 21 lights indicate how far open the expression shutters are, and the remaining 10 lights show when special features are activated.


Organ Chambers - the expression shutters are open on the far wall
Behind 2'-thick glass windows are 5,360 of the Longwood Organ's 10,010 pipes.

Five rooms of pipes are visible. An additional 4 rooms with 4,650 pipes and numberous percussion instruments are upstairs and cannot be seen. Also hidden is the Blower Room in the basement.


Each pipe room ("division") is separated from it neighbor by concrete walls, except on the Ballroom side where expression shutters on 7 of the 9 rooms that can be opened and closed by the organist to control the volume.

The entire instrument is played from the console in the Ballroom, or by a computer.


The glass made it difficult for me to get a clear shot of the pipe rooms, but here you can see the hundreds of pipes ranging from tractor-trailer sized mufflers on the right to little pencil-sized ones on the floor on the left.


I'm sure this thing has some pretty wicked bass.

Next to the pipe rooms, there was a photographic display showing other organs of similar magnitude. I was pleasantly surprised to find I have actually heard a number of them played, including Wannamaker's (now Macy's) Department store in downtown Philadelphia with 28,482 pipes! (get a load of that console!), the Convention Center in Atlantic City with 33,114 pipes (largest and loudest in the world), as well as those in several huge cathedral churchs in Europe.

Added: A video showing the organ being played along with the outdoor fountains (here).