At the time of the building of the sanctuary, the organ was ordered through Swain and Kates of San Francisco. It was built in West Germany in early 1968 and shipped to Lafayette through the Panama Canal. It was a twenty-nine rank organ (twenty-nine sets of pipes), with the thinking that it would be expanded to 40 ranks.
Ken Mansfield came to join our staff at this time and he, together with Swain and Kates, did the basic design for the expansion to forty ranks in 1972. This change was mainly for the pedal organ, but there was an additional behind-the-scene adjustment. The organ consists of three divisions - designated as Great, Swell, and Positiv. The original Swell box was not up to specifications, so an additional Swell box was designed and placed behind the screen on the pulpit side of the sanctuary. So the Swell is divided - half that can be seen on the right hand side and the other half is hidden. It is worth noting that the large pedal pipes are laid on their sides, also behind the screen. The largest of these is 19 feet long.
Two years later Ken wanted to add two additional sounds in the organ. The first was a set of three pipes for each note called a cornet to be added to the Great, and a softer accompanimental flute on the Positiv. However, the cornet stop on the Great was installed as a short compass beginning from G below middle C and going to the top. Ken decided that he really wanted to go down seven notes further, so the Mansfields supplied the funding for the twenty-one additional pipes.
The final step that was visualized by Ken was the addition of a trumpet in the Swell division, so that there would be what is known as a chorus reed, under expression in the Swell box. An anonymous organ lover provided the funds, and that was added in 1992.
In 1996, it was necessary to re-leather the organ. Inside the chest under the pipe work there are about 1100 small leather pouches. The chest was disassembled and those pouches replaced at a cost of about $30,000.
A major overhaul of the organ took place in the first quarter of 2001. The original console was removed and replaced with a new one employing all of the latest technology. This allows greater flexibility in deploying the tonal resources of the organ. Specifically, the two Swell sections have been treated as totally independent divisions. The combination action (a system that can change the setting of the entire organ by pushing one button) has been upgraded from seven settings in the old console to 480 in the new. One set of pipes in the Swell was replaced with pipes that are more stable in tuning and have a wider range of use. Finally, a new stop was added to the Positiv bringing the organ to a total of forty-six ranks, divided among 2723 pipes.
Also installed in the new console are a set of step tablets for a possible expansion of the organ by the installation of a rear gallery division should the church ever see fit to make such a move.
Ken has wonderful stories of his life on the organ bench - invasions of ants that made the notes dance, the bird that landed on the music rack, the bee that stung him in the midst of a concert, and that famous Christmas Eve when rain started pouring down through the steeple. But let Ken tell the story:
"During the seven o’clock service, the rain leaked in through the steeple and moved in a straight line right down the rafters. It came right down the middle of the console, the keyboard and onto my nose. Between the seven and nine 0' clock services, the custodians and I got some plastic sheets and lined the chandelier over my head with plastic. All during the service the rain came splattering in on the plastic. Finally, that plastic reservoir was full, and it started running on the people in the front row. So I turned to them and said, "You know, I'm terribly sorry, but you can move, and I can't!"
Yes, you have been there almost unmovable for a long time, dear friend, and we have enjoyed every minute.
