Across Illinois, craftsmen quietly build some of America’s most storied musical instruments, including harps, violins and organs.<\/b>
\nLittle about the utilitarian brick building on the city\u2019s industrial Near West Side hints at what\u2019s made inside.
Here, where freight trucks and elevated trains rumble by all day, it\u2019s common for passersby to ask: \u201cDo you really make harps in there?\u201d
Yes, Lyon & Healy, does make harps. And not just any ol\u2019 harps, but arguably, the world\u2019s finest instruments.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has two gold-leafed Prince William Concert Grand harps \u2014 each valued at about $93,000. People come from the farthest reaches of the planet \u2014 South America, Europe, Singapore, Tasmania \u2014 to buy them.
And Lyon & Healy isn\u2019t alone. In factories across Illinois, craftsmen are quietly building some of America\u2019s most storied musical instruments, including violins and even pipe organs.
An employee at the Lyon & Healy harp factory works on the \u201caction,\u201d a mechanical device made up of some 1,500 parts that allows the harpist to control the instrument\u2019s pitch.| Brian Rich\/Sun-Times
Bostonians George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy came to Chicago in the soggy spring of 1864. They stared out at a mud-caked Clark Street downtown, with its rickety wooden buildings, and saw \u2014 possibility.
\u201cIt was a cow town back then,\u201d says Steve Fritzmann, Lyon & Healy\u2019s national sales manager. \u201cBut they saw the railroads. They saw the future, the distribution. It was a brilliant move.\u201d
What began as a sheet music shop at the corner of Washington and Clark grew into a manufacturer of everything from mandolins to violins to guitars and, beginning in 1889, harps.
An employee completes the chisel work on the slot in the harp\u2019s column.| Brian Rich\/Sun-Times
Today, Lyon & Healy makes about 1,000 harps annually, much like they were made 130 years ago \u2014 mostly by hand. They fashion the triangular instrument\u2019s swooping lines from Sitka spruce and maple, the most delicate floral designs brought to life with a chisel just three millimeters wide at its tip.
On the lower floors of the factory, tiny hammers tap, circular saws buzz and industrial fans whir. A thin layer of sawdust covers everything. On the top floor \u2014 the showroom \u2014 row after row of instruments gleam beneath subdued spotlights. The only sound: the beguiling flutter of a Lyon & Healy harp.
The finished product on display in the factory\u2019s showroom on the top floor.| Brian Rich\/Sun-Times
It\u2019s a sound that is slowly slipping away. There are only four major harp makers left in the world, and two of them focus on more basic student-level models, Fritzmann said.
The harp \u201caction\u201d in final assembly before being mounted in the frame of the instrument.| Brian Rich\/Sun-Times
Some three miles to the east, the theme music from the movie \u201cThe Godfather\u201d periodically floats out of Gary Garavaglia\u2019s workshop on Michigan Avenue.
It\u2019s a signal that the master luthier has finished a violin, viola or cello \u2014 and is playing the only piece he knows well in order to double check his handiwork.
At Lyon & Healy, 90 or so sets of hands will touch a harp during production. At William Harris Lee & Co., it\u2019s just Garavaglia or one of the company\u2019s other 17 luthiers who cut, scrape, sand, glue and varnish the instruments.
A craftsman uses a woodworking gouge to complete the decorative work on the base of the column of a harp.| Brian Rich\/Sun-Times
\u201cYou start carving with hand planes and scrapers,\u201d says Lisa Zimmerman, the company\u2019s general manager. \u201cThe curve of the instrument is not bent, it\u2019s carved, and the scroll \u2014 that\u2019s all done by hand. That\u2019s why they are all so unique.\u201d
William Harris Lee & Co. instruments can be found in orchestras worldwide, Zimmermann said. They\u2019ve been in business since 1978, and always in the Fine Arts Building.
Master luthier Gary Garavaglia, of William Harris Lee & Co., at his workspace inside the Fine Arts Building, 410 South Michigan Ave.| Santiago Covarrubias\/Sun-Times file photo
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to get people,\u201d Zimmerman said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of training. People have to love to work with their hands.\u201d
Master luthier Gary Garavaglia, of William Harris Lee & Co., explains how to build a violin.| Santiago Covarrubias\/Sun-Times file photo
Travel 280 miles to the south to Highland, near St. Louis, and you\u2019ll discover one of America\u2019s great pipe organ builders. Even if you\u2019re not familiar with the Wicks name, chances are you\u2019ve heard one played. Churches, concert halls, universities, 1920s movie palaces \u2014 even pizza parlors \u2014 have all made space for a Wicks organ.
\u201cIt literally had bells and whistles and gongs and sirens,\u201d owner Scott Wick said of the old movie palace organs.
The company, started in 1906, has built about 6,500 over 112 years \u2014 from a portable model that can fit in a box the size of a standard upright piano to ones with pipes that stretch 30 feet into the air.
In the company\u2019s heyday \u2014 the 1950s and \u201960s \u2014 Wicks employed 100 people and built 40 to 50 organs a year.
\u201cNow, there\u2019s not even that many being built in the whole country,\u201d Wick said.
A Wicks organ console from a church in Huntingburg, Indiana, that was recently restored in Illinois.| Facebook
Blame the drop in attendance at churches nationwide \u2014 and a preference for other, less expensive instruments. A new pipe organ starts at about $150,000, Wick says, estimating that he now makes one to two a year.
Much of the company\u2019s business now comes from repairing or tuning organs that are still in use and refurbishing ones removed from churches slated for closure.
\u201cI\u2019ve filled up a warehouse full of used instruments,\u201d Wick said.<\/p>\n