Our Rodgers 340 Special

The organ is a CUSTOM CENTURY 340 built for the residence of Mr. And Mrs. Lloyd Nelson.

It was purchased through the NORTHWEST PIANO AND ORGAN COMPANY in Seattle, WA. The specifications were prepared by Jonas Nordwal and dated October 29, 1975. The serial number is 39192. There are numerous changes to the "standard" 340 specifications so that it required a "deep" console (37 ¼ inches) to accommodate the additional electronics rack, raising the total number of racks to 4. This 37 ¼ deep console as to be the cause of much work later.

Some of the things that make this organ special are the addition of a second Diapason, a Gemshorn and Celeste, a Flute Celeste, III Rank Mixture, and the Kinura was replaced with a Oboe. There are 2 additional sets of oscillators as well as numerous extensions to the other 4 sets. The original specs included four Klips LaScala speaker systems as well as the W-32 pedal cabinet, three W-13 speakers and a standard Rodgers Leslie L-100.

Sometime around 1992 Mrs. Nelson traded the organ in for a Rodgers 360 and the 340 was purchased by Bill Keller of Olympia Washington. It was in stalled in his home for the next 8 years. In late 1999 Mr. Keller purchased a large Allen Custom organ and decided to place the 340 up for sale. I found the organ listed on the Theatre Organ Classifieds and called. It was still available and after numerous e-mails the deal was made and I was scheduled to fly to Olympia to finalize the deal and see the organ. I arrived on Saturday the 8th of January. The organ was in a beautiful music room with the speakers located in a large loft. What a sound. I was hooked. We spent Saturday playing the organ as well as visiting other organs in the area. Sunday was a work day. We spent all day getting the speakers down from the loft and getting everything packed. Monday we removed Bill's front door and casing so that the movers could extract the organ from the house and move it to Pussers Piano and Organ Dealership. From there it was picked up by Keyboard Carriage and transported to Peaveys Melody music in Meridian, Mississippi. It arrived on the 9th of Feb, 2000.

We transferred it directly from the 50 foot transport truck to a 24 food U-Haul truck and headed to my house. My wife (Gean) had viewed this as an opportunity to get a new front door since we had to remove the entire door and casing to get the organ in. With the casing removed a standard 36 inch door will have 37 ½ inch between the raw framing. If you are lucky a little more. We didn't but 37 ½ was enough with a lot of padding. Remember this console weighs over 600 pounds by itself. The trip across country did take a toll. There were quite a number of wires broken on the stop sliders as well as all of the light bulbs were out. This was all due to age and vibration. I spent the next several days making the minor repairs to the organ as well as disposing of the 2 Leslie 145s. We installed the organ in our living room with the pedal cabinet and the 4 LaScala speakers. I did add a preamp to provide 4 channels of reverb out to feed into some stereo speaker with a separate amp. Overall the sound was average but with the drapes, carpet and furniture in the room as well as the small size (12 x 18) it certainly was not spectacular. I started making plans to expand the organ and do some modifications but these were temporarily tabled while we remodeled the house.

During that time Gean and I decided that the house was just too small for us and the organ and we started looking for another house. About the time the remodel was completed we found a piece of property that would allow us to build a retirement home. We purchased the property in December of 2001. Because property was part of a bankruptcy we had title but there was a doublewide trailer where we wanted to place the house. This delayed the start of construction until June of 2002. Finally on the 4th of June 2002 the contractor broke ground and we were on the way. The plans were for a 2600 sq. foot home with a music room that was 33 x 17 and had a loft at each end for the speakers. We had the contractor finish the outside but the inside was bare studs with no wiring, plumbing or anything else. That was the 3rd of August 2002. We did all the inside work ourselves, calling on friends as necessary and on the 4th of May 2003 we moved in with no kitchen but a hotplate in one of the bathrooms to cook on and an ice chest for a refrigerator. By mid July the rest was completed and we had the organ hooked up with all of the speakers. The music room has a set of 60 inch French Doors. That was a lot easier than removing the casings. By now you would have thought I would be well into doing the modifications that were planned several years before. Wrong, I have found that being retired means being available. I don't know when I had time to work, however there was hope. As things got done I found time to start modifying and adding to the 340.