‘It looks beautiful’: Historic Arcada Theatre organ gets repairs, upgrades

The monthly silent movie nights at the Arcada Theatre have gone even more silent — as in they are no longer scheduled at this time.

Ron Onesti, in a salute to the St. Charles theater’s roots, has always scheduled the silent films with someone playing the theater’s historic organ to provide the musical score. In addition, that organ has played “warm up” music for most concerts at the Arcada.

For now, a few things have unfolded to make it a tougher task to feature silent movies and organ music in the same manner the Arcada showed them on its opening night of Sept. 6, 1926.

Still, we haven’t seen the last of silent movies or that wonderful organ at the Arcada. The stars, and some construction work on the stage, have to align in the coming months to welcome back the organ.

For the past few years, the organ has been in the hands of Chicago Area Theatre Organ Enthusiasts, an organization that has maintained the organ since the 1960s and, over time, has put up to $45,000 into keeping it looking fantastic and sounding great.

The most recent organist during the Arcada films, Dennis J. Wolkowicz, known as “Jay Warren” of the Silent Film Society of Chicago, passed away earlier this year at the age of 74. For a few years prior to his passing, Warren had a smaller organ set up near the Arcada stage to provide the music.

In the meantime, CATOE member Taylor Trimby of Joliet has been working on the Arcada’s original organ — a 1926 Geneva/Marr and Colton pipe organ with a console designed through the creative mind of Lester Norris, St. Charles philanthropist and founder of the theater.

In 2015, Trimby played the organ at the Arcada alongside a photo of Jim Shaffer, the longtime organist at the theater and CATOE volunteer who had passed away in late 2013 at age 77 after more than 30 years of playing at Arcada shows.

That same year, CATOE members worked on the organ, redoing one of its chambers.

“It was quite a mess, but we cleaned it up and put it back in,” Trimby said

Eight years later, CATOE was again working on the organ, known as “Cassandra,” in hopes of showing it at the American Theater Organ Society national convention in Chicago.

That work, started in 2021, focused on redoing the console of the organ to fit a new stage setup at the Arcada. Trimby is aware the Arcada needs a new lift under the stage and an electricity upgrade for the organ.

“It looks beautiful; it is amazing what we did,” Trimby noted, referring to bringing back an original Chinese red on the console, as well as work CATOE members did in restoring carvings of a bird, a sun and its rays on the console’s side.

“We spent three months taking seven layers of paint off the console and doing all of this work,” Trimby explained. “There is no other organ like it around. No other organ has that echo chamber or the swinging chimes on both sides of it.”

That says a lot about this historic organ, one that already can create the sounds of an array of musical instruments.

CATOE categorizes the organ as a Geneva, three-manual (keyboards), 19-rank (sets of pipes for different sounds from an orchestra like clarinet, flute, tuba, French horn, strings, etc.) pipe organ. The organ also replicates instruments like drums, orchestra bells, xylophone, chimes, castanets and tambourine.

In its original form, the organ was a three-manual, 10-rank Marr and Colton. The Geneva Organ Company added three ranks for sounds on the right side of the stage in 1927 and three ranks for the balcony, or echo division, in 1928. Currently, CATOE is planning to add three more ranks (sets of pipes) to the organ.

Last summer, Trimby hosted a concert at his home, mainly to show CATOE members the restored case and chamber parts of “Cassandra.”

His main goal has been to get the organ back to the Arcada so the theater can carry on its tradition as historic and grand, featuring something unique in its organ.

Arcada frontman Ron Onesti has the same goal. He has a 100th anniversary coming up this year at his Des Plaines Theatre in addition to the Arcada’s next year. In other words, he’s busy planning and thinking ahead.

For the Arcada, that means getting the newer stage ready to accept the refurbished organ — and continue the tradition of having patrons see it lift up from underneath the stage before performances.

“The lift technology at the theater was from the 1920s and didn’t fit today’s setup with the new stage and organ,” Onesti said. “There was a thought that maybe we could do without the lift, but I said that’s the magic of the organ at the Arcada.

“Coming up out of the floor is like a ‘Phantom of the Opera’ thing, and we have to do it that way,” he added.

Onesti estimates the special lift should be at the theater in about a month, allowing more focus on the refurbished organ and getting it in place before next year’s anniversary.

“Ron Onesti has always been a proponent of the organ,” Trimby said. “It was that organ that saved the theater, because CATOE always did shows there two or three times a year and that is how Ron found out about the theater and its organ.

“That’s when he came in (2005) and started working to restore the theater,” he added. “We used to play the organ before all of his shows with a half-hour of ‘seating music.’ Sometimes, that music didn’t line up with what the show was going to be, but people loved that organ.”

As a guy in the organization restoring the organ to a level that would make Lester Norris proud, Trimby just wants to have enough time to get “Cassandra” properly ready to return home.

Among other work, he suggests getting the organ’s 1,000 pipes just right could take several months of tweaking and preparing. Onesti is aware of that, which is why the timetable for the lift arrival and placement is vital.

For my part, as a guy who enjoyed the silent movie nights and considers the organ to be one of the most special pieces of St. Charles history, I have to believe the birth of the refurbished organ will be a major part of the theater’s 100th anniversary next year.

We all should be eager to see — and hear — “Cassandra” again.

Gates went missing

Photographers have found the ornamental iron gates supported by two concrete pillars at the Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva to be the perfect backdrop for all sorts of “life event” photos.

But last week, a couple of those photographers stopped us during our walk around Col. George Fabyan’s nearly 120-year-old estate to ask if we knew anything about why that gate was no longer in place.

One look at the repair needed for the concrete pillars gave me a good idea of why the gates suddenly went missing.

Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley confirmed my suspicion in noting the gates were taken away temporarily and stored for safety reasons.

“The concrete pillars are in poor condition and there was a safety concern,” said Al Watts, engagement director for the Partners. “The fear is that the gates could come loose if someone stood on them.”

Forest preserve officials have frequently seen people standing on the gates, Watts noted.

One could only imagine why anyone would be compelled to stand on the gates. My guess would be simple foolishness or, in some cases, an interesting photo could be created if, say, a newly engaged couple were somehow perched on the gates with smiling faces.

Even if the gates were safe, keepers of the Fabyan estate would frown on such antics.

Either way, the important thing is repairing the concrete pillars in order to return the gates, but Watts said a timeline for repairs is currently not known.

Otter makes new splash

One thing most of us surely remember from our childhoods was the community swimming pool or beach and how much fun we had hanging out there.

St. Charles Park District can count on creating all sorts of memories for the future when it introduces new features at a grand reopening celebration from 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday, May 24, of the splash park at Otter Creek Aquatic Cove.

In addition to upgrades to equipment and plumbing, such as piping and filters, this Campton Hills Road community pool is ready to show off some new stuff.

That would include sprayers, bubblers, cascading waterfalls and what the park district is touting as a “state-of-the-art sand and water play unit equipped with pulleys, levers, and tables” donated by the St. Charles Park Foundation and supported by the Norris Foundation.

An unpleasant rhapsody

Third Street in Geneva was crowded on a beautiful Mother’s Day morning with families enjoying a quiet a stroll with the dog or a walk to church or breakfast.

Then some knucklehead rode by on his bike with music blaring so loud you could hear it for blocks. For a few minutes, it ruined the pleasant atmosphere.

But one young mom walking with her family at least had a positive take on what she was hearing.

“At least it’s Queen,” she said.

• dheun@sbcglobal.net