The Chapel Organ

Chapel Organ Designed and built by Dewey Layton, 1974

The Chapel Organ is a five-rank electropneumatic pipe organ, installed on both sides of the main entrance into Christ’s Church Historic Chapel.

It was custom-designed for this space by Dewey W. Layton of Layton Organs, Inc., of Florence, Colorado. Funded by numerous memorial gifts and other donations, work on the organ was begun in May of 1973 and completed in September, 1974, at a cost of $8000. The cost of an equivalent organ today is estimated at over $200,000. The new organ was dedicated by Bishop William Frey on February 2, 1975.

The organ has two manuals and a full pedal division and contains a total of 321 pipes, made of wood, tin, and zinc. The viola pipes had been used briefly in another church organ, but were “almost new” and exactly what this design called for. The reed pipes reportedly came out of an old theater organ and were revoiced for this installation. The rest were made to order. The swell division is enclosed in a swell box above the Philippine mahogany console. The wind chest and blower are located in the loft above and behind the organ, and depend on room air drawn in through the lattice covering over the structure that houses them.

Though Layton himself retired in the latter part of the twentieth century, the same company that built the organ continues to take care of it, coming four times a year to do tuning and maintenance. The company is now called Mountain States Pipe Organs, and is still building and servicing pipe organs all over Colorado.