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The Longwood Organ

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Organ Fun Facts

  • The tallest pipe is 32 feet tall, and made of Sugar Pine, the tallest pine trees in the world

  • The largest pipe creates a very low sound of 16 hertz, creating an earthquake sensation

  • In 1930, the cost of the custom-built Aeolian organ was $122,700, equivalent to $1.5 million today

  • Organs were the most complex machines invented before the Industrial Revolution

  • 5,360 of the 10,010 pipes can be viewed through the special glass walled chambers in the Organ Museum behind Longwood’s Ballroom

  • The Aeolian Company was founded in 1878 in New York City. Aeolian’s customers read like a Who’s Who of America: Carnegie, Ford, Mellon, Rockefeller, Tiffany, Vanderbilt and especially, du Pont

  • Pierre du Pont purchased two organs from the Aeolian company, including the largest and most expensive for a residential setting

  • The thousands of individual parts of the Longwood Organ weigh a total of 55 tons all together

  • The console weighs 2,800 pounds

  • Counting all of the controls on the console, there are 244 keys and 492 controls for the hands, and 32 keys and 50 controls for the feet. This totals 818 electrical switches on the console that the organist commands!

Explore and Listen

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Organ Concerts

Join us for a season of organ concerts that showcase the fully restored 10,010 pipe instrument. Tour Longwood's unique Organ Museum for an impressive behind the scenes look at the thousands of pipes!

Find out more

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Hear the Sounds of the Longwood Organ

Listen to sound clips online

Find out interesting facts about the largest Aeolian organ ever constructed in a residential setting, and listen to the sounds of the newly-restored pipes.

Find out more

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The Longwood Organ on American Public Media

In May 2012, American Public Media broadcast an episode of Pipedreams titled "Longwood Revisited" which highlighted the history and restoration of The Longwood Organ.

Listen to the program