St. Paul Catholic
Church
Westerville, OH
3/54 Muller
2014
Every pipe organ has a story, and the three manual, 54 rank Muller Pipe Organ inside St. Paul
Catholic Church in Westerville, OH has had quite a journey. From its
conception on paper to final installation, the organ's design could be
considered "fluid" with the numerous changes made along the way.
However, the end result validates that all of the changes and effort
were well worth the effort.
Parish and Church
History
St.
Paul parish was established in 1913 to serve as a mission church
for Catholics in the areas around the northeast Columbus suburb of
Westerville. Today it is the largest parish in the Columbus Catholic
Diocese with over 14,000 members according to its webpage.
After
meeting in various rented spaces, the mission built its first
church
building in 1931. The mission formally became a parish in 1951 and
continued to grow with its second church building finished in 1968
to keep up with the
expanding population. The current church was completed in June 2011. It
is not known whether the 1931 structure had a pipe organ. The 1968
church had a two manual Allen electronic organ built in 1980.
Organ Design
Though
the organ was not built when the current church was built, preparations
were made for when one was installed. In spite of these
preparations, there still were a number of unknowns which
affected the design of the Muller
instrument, most notably being the large distance between the rail
division and the rest of the organ in the loft.
Initially the organ's layout had the Swell
and Choir divisions in the main case and the Great on the rail. However
it was felt that a better overall blend could be attained by moving the
Choir to the rail and the Great into the main case. This also resulted
in some ranks being moved between divisions to again balance the sound.
For
additional information about the design of the organ, the organ
dedication program has a very well-written description of the
instrument. Click here to be taken to the article (reprinted with
permission from Muller Pipe Organ Company).