Tag Archives: Kapstan Piano Services

Monday Update » 6.11.12

Wel­come back to Mon­day, every­one! We hope you’ve been enjoy­ing your sum­mer so far. As usu­al, we’ve been busy here and we have some fun things to report to you:

Facelift for Camp­bell House
Actu­al­ly, more like a coat of paint. 2012 marks the 10-year anniver­sary of the com­ple­tion of the exte­ri­or ren­o­va­tion of the house, and we’re due for anoth­er paint job. For­tu­nate­ly, we’ve secured a gen­er­ous grant from the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for the funds to have the brick, win­dows and cor­nices repaint­ed. Since the house is so big and tall, this is going to be an excit­ing process because the painters will have to use a series of lifts to reach the high­est points of the house. Work will like­ly begin this sum­mer after we com­plete spot tuck­point­ing, and we’ll be sure to share pic­tures as the work pro­gress­es. Three cheers for the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for help­ing us keep the Camp­bells’ home in tip-top shape!

We ♥ Our Interns
Camp­bell House has a full com­ple­ment of six interns this sum­mer. Though most of them are from St. Louis, they rep­re­sent uni­ver­si­ties from all over the coun­try, (Vas­sar, Wart­burg Col­lege and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty) and a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines includ­ing art his­to­ry, chem­istry (real­ly) and Amer­i­can cul­ture stud­ies. They’ll get the full muse­um expe­ri­ence this sum­mer by giv­ing tours, con­duct­ing research, inven­to­ry­ing the Camp­bell col­lec­tion as well as all of the oth­er day-to-day stuff that needs to get done (i.e. water­ing the gar­den, book­ing tours, work­ing on mem­ber­ship renewals, etc). Check back in with us as we post intern pro­files to the blog. These dynam­ic — and wicked­ly smart — stu­dents breathe new life into this house, and we’re for­tu­nate to have their fresh per­spec­tive. While they’re learn­ing the muse­um biz, we get new insight and ideas for mak­ing this old house cur­rent and rel­e­vant to a young demo­graph­ic. Are you inter­est­ed in join­ing us for an intern­ship, too? Email Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn at andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org.

Inte­ri­or of Fort Laramie by Alfred Jacob Miller
Water­col­or, 1858–1860

Retrac­ing Robert’s Route
This week, Intre­pid Researcher Tom™  and our illus­tri­ous Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy are tak­ing a trip out to the wild west to vis­it Robert’s old stomp­ing grounds. Begin­ning at Fort Laramie, the pair will meet Robert’s great-nephew Alan (who is com­ing all the way from North­ern Ire­land) to see the annu­al Ren­dezvous that reen­acts the year­ly event where trap­pers would meet with mer­chants to trade furs for goods. Fort Laramie is sig­nif­i­cant because Robert found­ed Fort William, which was Fort Laramie’s pre­cur­sor. This year’s event will com­mem­o­rate artist Alfred Jacob Miller’s 1837 trip to the ren­dezvous. Miller pro­duced some of the most famous images of the Ore­gon Trail and Fort Laramie, includ­ing the one on the right. After the ren­dezvous, the trio will vis­it Muse­um of the Moun­tain Man, Pier­re’s Hole (the site of the famous bat­tle in which Robert and pal Bill Sub­lette played a major role), and final­ly — if they have time — a trip to Fort Bridger. We’ll be sure to post pic­tures after the trav­el­ers return.

A pic­ture from the process: the entire key­board was removed from the body of the piano.

Music to Our Ears
In what proved to be a five-month project, the Camp­bells’ piano is DONE! JoAnn Kaplan of Kap­stan Piano Ser­vices worked tire­less­ly to clean, fix and/or cus­tom-fab­ri­cate new parts, and final­ly tune the old Schomack­er. We did­n’t do all that work for noth­ing — we’ll start host­ing par­lor con­certs lat­er this year. Check back for details.

Tours on Tap
Did you miss our wild­ly suc­cess­ful Lucas Place/Tap Room walk­ing tour last fall? Have no fear — we’ll offer it again and then some. This week we’re meet­ing with our friends at Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion of St. Louis to put togeth­er some fun and infor­ma­tive tours. As soon as we work out the details we ‘ll get a sched­ule of events post­ed. Do you have an idea for a build­ing, neigh­bor­hood or spe­cial tour of Camp­bell House? Let us know! Send your bright idea to shelley.satke [at] gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do.

Detail of the reuphol­stered piano bench. That’s silk vel­vet and yes, it feels as good as it looks.

Facelift 2.0: Bidet and Piano Stool
The house is get­ting repaint­ed, and two pieces of fur­ni­ture have been reuphol­stered, too. The fab­ric on Vir­gini­a’s bidet cov­er had dete­ri­o­rat­ed to noth­ing more than threads, and the piano stool was­n’t in much bet­ter shape. Board mem­ber and inte­ri­or design­er Tim Rohan gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed new fab­ric and had the tops of both pieces of fur­ni­ture reuphol­stered over the exist­ing fab­rics so we would not lose the orig­i­nal mate­r­i­al (what was left of it, anyway).

New Geo­cache
Are you into urban trea­sure hunt­ing? We have a new geo­cache in our garden.…dig up your GPS or down­load a geo­cache app to find it, and add your name to the list!

Board Pres­i­dent Fritz Clif­ford with St. Louis Bal­let dancers.

We’re the Daaaahncers
Last week we wel­comed a crew of St. Louis Bal­let dancers who per­formed at our Mag­i­cal Spring Thing in April. They got the VIP tour with Andy and Board Pres­i­dent Fritz lead­ing the way.  Do you have a spe­cial group that would like to have a spe­cial behind-the-scenes expe­ri­ence at Camp­bell House? Con­tact Andy (andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org) or Shel­ley (shelley.satke [at] gmail.com) and we are more than hap­py to accom­mo­date you!

Bye, Bob
Bob’s going away.…for now. The beloved gar­den gnome that was left on our front steps as a prank will be vaca­tion­ing back at the DeMe­nil Man­sion until we launch a secret expe­di­tion to bring him home.  <super sadface>

.…and that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. Have a spec­tac­u­lar week!

Surgery on the Schomacker

Our beloved box grand piano is due for a tuning.

It has­n’t been worked on since some of the Camp­bells were still alive, so we’re eas­i­ly talk­ing 100 years. Four keys did­n’t do any­thing, and the sound? Three words: Nails. On. Chalk­board. Vir­ginia bought the Schomack­er & Co. piano in Philadel­phia short­ly after the Camp­bells moved in. The orig­i­nal price was $500, but she got a $25 discount.

We thought if the piano was repaired, cleaned up and tuned, we could host mini con­certs in the par­lor and have oth­er events where the piano could be fea­tured. (You know, use the piano like the Camp­bells did.) We want the piano to sound and func­tion as well as it looks.

Today, JoAnn from Kap­stan Piano Ser­vices came over to begin work­ing on it. Take a look at what she did:

All the stuff that had been on top of the piano. Goethe is in the mid­dle, and the birds are two of Hazletts pets that have been preserved.

Vir­ginia super­vis­es as JoAnn and docent Den­nis prep the area.

Detail of the side of the piano.

Under the hood.

The piano body after the key­board assem­bly was removed.

Key­board assembly

Work is going to con­tin­ue into next week. Stay tuned (get it?!) for more pic­tures and hope­ful­ly video of the piano in action!