One of only two Wurlitzer K photoplayers left in the world has finally been restored and unveiled in Pirongia after it was left to rot in a garden shed.
The gigantic music and sound effects player was brought out to New Zealand in 1915 to accompany the silent movies at the Strand Theatre in Auckland's Queen Street.
"It is the only Wurlitzer photoplayer to come to New Zealand, less than 300 were made worldwide and only six of them ever left America so for New Zealand to get one was a big deal," said Hamilton Piano Company tuner/technician Kevin Hanna.
Along with restorer Nathan Smith he has spent 10 years rebuilding what the pair call a "national treasure".
When the silent movie era ended, the rare Wurlitzer K was scrapped for parts in 1948, and later acquired by an Auckland collector who kept it in storage for 50 years.
The Opotiki Photoplayer Trust stepped in to save the piano and player action in 2011, after it was found in a garden shed in Mt Eden, Auckland.
"The water rotted the entire base end off the piano and left a hole in the keyboard big enough to put your head through!" said Hanna.
Side cabinets containing 196 organ pipes in one, and an entire percussion section - synonymous with a 16-piece orchestra - did not exist and had to be rebuilt.
Most people in the orchestrion world deemed the rare Wurlitzer K unrestorable, he said.
"We didn't have any believers other than the Trust that this machine would ever sing again."
The photoplayer is on the Ministry for Cultural and Heritage's Nationally Significant Object Register which means it can never leave New Zealand.
The Pirongia pair were brought on board by the Opotiki Trust in 2013 and have spent 10,000 hours painstakingly restoring the piano and player action, and ensemble over the past 10 years.
"It's no different from being handed a splinter of wood and being told this came from Beethoven's piano, see what you can do with it!"
The Wurlitzer Model K can be played manually or automatically and uses punched paper rolls that contain "binary instructions" which Smith likens to "an early form of computer".
It uses the piano keyboard to activate the percussion instruments in one cabinet and on the other side, organ pipes, which they salvaged from an Australian Wurlitzer K pulled out of a fire.
"Everything you hear, whether it's a chime, a beater, or a bar, it's all Wurlitzer originals."
To ensure a genuine restoration Smith and Hanna visited the Chicago owners of the only other working Wurlitzer K in the world.
"Under conservation rules everything is identical to 1915 technology," Hanna said.
It's been a 10-year labour of love for these mad-keen musos. The Opotiki Trust originally funded the project to the tune of $600,000.
When it ran out of cash, Smith and Hanna knew it had to end on a high note, so poured thousands of hours and dollars in themselves.
"Thanks to COVID and a lack of money to finish it, lack of a home for it, it was up to us to finish it. We've got a completed machine that can now be used and demonstrated to the public and that's the main thing is that what was going to go to landfill the Trust achieved their goal, it has been saved."
On Saturday the Trust officially handed over the sizeable symphony to the pair who'll now open their doors, high in the hills of picturesque Pirongia, for all to see.
Their collection of nine, in a climate-controlled room, includes the piano used in Jane Campion's Power of the Dog.
But it's the Wurlitzer K bound to wow the crowds, silent no more thanks to a little Kiwi ingenuity.
"Some days you look at it and think, was it worth that amount of time, 10 years of our life and other days when you hit play and you listen to it, it's worth every minute," Hanna reflected.
