EEN SHEET
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 11/09/2015
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This Is Us
3,000-pipe
organ hits
right chord
Caledonia man’s ‘basement bijou’
features 1920s-style movie palace
By CHELSEY LEWIS
[email protected]
Caledonia — Fred Hermes says he doesn’t
move as easily as he used to.
You wouldn’t believe him if you watched
the 89-year-old play the rare 1926 Wurlitzer
theater organ housed in his Caledonia basement, his fingers flipping buttons and flying
CHELSEY LEWIS / [email protected]
across the five keyboards while his feet efFred Hermes sits in front of his rare five-keyboard Wurlitzer theater organ in the basement of his home.
fortlessly work the pedals below.
Tucked under a three-bedroom ranch at
the end of a dead-end road along Lake Michi(I was so excited) I’d kick her all over the
gan, the basement looks ordinary enough
place,” he said. “I decided then and there,
from the outside. A hand-painted wooden
someday I was going to buy that organ, be“Theatre” sign is the only hint of what lies
cause I liked it so much. Then about four
inside.
weeks later, I was born. I bought my first
But a step through the basement door is
organ.”
like traveling through a time machine
The industrious 8-year-old bought the
straight into a 1920s movie palace. Rows of
pump organ from his piano teacher and
red theater seats on the main level and in a
hauled it home on a wagon with the help of a
balcony face the organ console elevated on a
few friends.
stage; Roman columns, sculptures and crystal
Two decades later, Hermes was at it again,
chandeliers decorate the room; mulrecruiting friends and a couple of
ticolored lights illuminate the stage
semitrailers to help him haul the
ABOUT THIS
Hermes has turned the basement of his home into a
and ceiling.
massive five-keyboard Wurlitzer
FEATURE
150-seat movie theater. The seats came from RacThe theater — Hermes calls it his
from the Michigan Theater in DeThis Is Us is a
“basement bijou” — is something to
troit home to Racine. Hermes paid
ine’s Uptown Theatre, which opened in 1928 and
recurring feature
behold, but it’s the organ that takes
$3,000 for the organ in 1955; he
closed in 1959.
in
the
Journal
center stage — literally.
estimates it’s worth about $3 milSentinel Green
“It’s the biggest organ that WurRacine; Italian Renaissance décor from Raclion today.
Sheet, with stories
litzer ever built,” said Hermes, a
ine’s Venetian Theatre.
Hermes then built the Caledonia
on the people,
member of the Dairyland Theatre
About 20 tour groups arranged through the
home for his organ, including a
places and things
Organ Society.
Racine County Convention and Visitors
basement with 20-foot ceilings.
Of the thousands of organs the
Bureau (800-272-2463, realracine.com) make
Once his son and daughter grew
reflecting the spirit
company made in the 1920s, it only
their way through Hermes’ miniature movie
up and stopped using the large
and heart of our
made three like Hermes’ “Mighty
palace every year to watch silent movies and
basement as their indoor playcommunity.
Wurlitzer.” The 3,000-pipe organ
hear him play.
ground, Hermes started thinking
weighs 25 tons and is housed in four chamEvery three years or so he stages his favorabout what he wanted to do with the space.
bers measuring from 20 to 75 feet. Bells,
ite: the original 1925 “The Phantom of the
“That was in about 1959. They started teartrumpets, flutes, percussion and all manner
Opera.”
ing down all of these beautiful movie palaces
of other instruments create a maze of pipes,
As he made his way through the dark
all over the country,” he said. “I got ahold of
wooden beams and electrical wires inside.
theater to turn off the blower for the organ,
building records, and they would tell me
“You can get almost anything out of this
the spry octogenarian — who still goes into
when they were tearing a theater down, and
organ you want,” Hermes said. He stroked a
his real estate and insurance office a few
they would say, ‘Come and get whatever you
key to play a heavenly note on the tibia flute. want out of the theater, that’s less stuff for
days a week — didn’t miss a chance for a
“Almost makes you want to cry, doesn’t it?”
joke.
us to haul to the dump!’ So I would go and
“Now I’m the phantom of the opera,” he
pick up all this stuff here and there.”
Obsessed from childhood
quipped before turning off the hissing blowHermes said he has artifacts from about 50
Hermes took piano lessons growing up, but
er, silence descending on the theater and
theaters: a mustard-yellow curtain from the
it was during a trip to a Racine theater that
ending the 1920s spell — for now.
Crown Theatre in Racine; the motor mechahe found his passion.
nism that opens and closes it from the Palace
“My mother used to take me down to the
Theatre in Dallas; stage lights from KenoFeatured attraction
Rialto Theatre in Racine, and the guy played
sha’s Lake Theater; crystal chandeliers from
Watch a video of Fred Hermes and his “basement bijou”
an organ down there — it was a small Wurthe Piccadilly Theatre in Chicago; more than
at jsonline.com/greensheet.
litzer — and when he played those low notes,
100 theater seats from the Uptown Theatre in
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