Nomination describes 'Place de la Musique'

Here is the nomination of Barrington Hills businessman and philanthropist Jasper Sanfilippo for the National Historic Preservation Medal by the Barrington area Signal Hill Chapter the Daughters of the American Revolution:

Jasper Sanfilippo is chairman emeritus of John B. Sanfilippo & Sons (Fisher brand nut products) and creator of "Place de la Musique."

This is the success story of an immigrant family and its leader's passion for historic preservation was almost as strong as his desire to succeed.

The son of a Sicilian immigrant, Jasper Sanfilippo built his father's storefront shelling business from $300,000 in 1963 to $743 million in 2013, yet he never lost his fascination for musical instruments and the mechanics that made them work.

Before there were jukeboxes and radios, there were nickelodeons and orchestrions - ingenious mechanical music machines that played the music of the day to entertain the public.

Whether in restaurants, bars, hotels, skating rinks, dance halls, or fairgrounds, these commercial, automated machines attracted crowds with their elaborate, artistic facades and their ability to replicate sounds from a small group of musicians up to a full orchestra, all with mechanically controlled mechanisms.

The Sanfilippo Collection has on display the largest variety of these restored instruments in the world. Each one of these devices is, in one sense, a form of time-machine. When you listen to a musical selection played on one of these automatic marvels you are hearing exactly what the people heard and experienced when it was new, whether it was 1890, 1910, or 1930.

In the 1970s, Jasper Sanfilippo began to collect pieces that married mechanical technology with musical instrumentation - not just gramophones, not just player pianos, but mechanical "orchestrions" that brought an orchestra's instrumentation to a pre‐radio population. His fascination with these pre-electric automated musical instruments expanded to include a 1948 dance organ and the world's largest pipe organ.

Filippo's collection required several expansions to his home's original 6,000 square feet, and encompasses 44,000 square feet under roof housing 19th century train engines, antique arcade games, and a fully working 19th century carousel.

Housing the collection, the Sanfilippo "Place de La Musique" recreates the Victorian era of the first movie palaces, with architectural details and coordinating, antique amenities, as well as serving the acoustical purpose of hearing some of the larger machines such as a fairground organ or a theater pipe organ, in an appropriate setting. The Music Theater can seat 350 and houses the largest theater pipe organ ever built. It is nearly a third larger than the organ at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

The overall experience is an auditory and visual immersion in one or the most exciting eras. To further showcase aspects of this inventive era, there are restored working steam engines, bi‐polar generators, overhead line shafts, and machines that played a critical role in this evolution. The engines are dated from 1820 up through the 1920s including a recently restored and reassembled complete power plant from an East Chelmsford, Massachusetts factory consisting of the slate switchboard, Corliss steam engine, shaft-coupled AC generator, DC exciter generator, overhead crane, and steam condenser.

There are eight operating steam engines in the lower level of the main house and over 20 in the Carousel Building, including the one that originally operated the 1890 French Salon Carousel. All of this equipment is on display and much of it can be operated to show how it functioned when it was new. Additionally, there is an 1881 Grant steam locomotive with restored caboose and 1890s Pullman passenger car.

There are six vintage street clocks around the estate and a newly restored tower clock in the carousel building with its own 33-foot ornate tower, as well as other examples of tower clock mechanisms.

The jewel of The Sanfilippo Collection is the Eden Palais, built in 1890, the most complete example of a European salon carousel in existence. With a carved and lit‐up facade that measures 89 feet wide by 42 feet tall it was undoubtedly one of the first places its original patrons experienced electric lighting. A 15-year restoration effort has brought this majestic carousel back to its glory. Thirty-six horses, several gondolas and chariots, and a spinning lover's tub all turn to the sounds of a Gavioli Band Organ.

Sanfilippo has publicly stated that the primary motive behind his collection is the preservation and sharing of the experience of these marvelous inventions of the Western World. The Sanfilippo Foundation works with nonprofit charities, collector groups and a limited amount of corporate-sponsored events.

Sanfilippo's priority for the foundation is assisting charities while exposing guests to the collection; the Sanfilippo family makes available his estate and historical artifact collection as a museum tour and gala venue for charitable organizations. Not only has this successful second-generation American lived the American dream - he freely shares his home and his love for historic preservation for charitable purposes.