Harry Dost Residence - 3/15 Wurlitzer
13216 37th Ave NE
Seattle, Washington
Organ installation timeframe: 1956 - ?
 
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According to Eugene Nye, in an article in the Seattle Times Sunday July 22, 1956, Harry Dost had acquired the Style 260 Wurlitzer opus #1592 from the Avalon Theatre in Chicago. Dost was an electrical engineer and he personally removed the organ from the theatre and hired a two-ton truck to bring it to Seattle. At the time of the article, Nye states that Dost was installing the organ in his home, but it is unknown if he ever completed it. The organ was later brokwn up for parts.
 
The Dost acquistion of opus #1592 does not appear in the Judd Walton or Dave Junction opus lists.
 
Intrestingly, Jon Habermaas, in a note to Peter Beames (creator of the Wurlitzer online opus list) in March 1999, wrote: "The Avalon Organ did not leave the theatre as an intact instrument. I visited the theatre in the late fifties and the console, pipe work percussions, and blower were gone, but all the chest work, regulators, and relay was still in the chambers. Since the only access was through small trap doors I imagine whoever purchased the organ got out what they could through those openings and left the rest. Ironically a lone Howard Seat was still standing on the organ lift, which the theatre manager allowed me to liberate for ten bucks. I used it for years on my basement Robert Morton hybrid for as long as I had the organ. Since that time the organ chambers have been cleaned out, so someone was able to scrap out the rest. Another sad tale of the fate of a fine instrument."
 
Dost later went on in 1967 to acquire at auction the Seattle Orpheum Theatre Wurlitzer in 1967. He had plans to install the instrument in his home, but it never materialized and the organ later found its way to Uncle Milt's Pizza Co. in Vancouver, WA.