Tanglewood Conservatories Blog

Harold Betters, renowned jazz trombonist blasts away with his quartet at the Lincoln Hall in downtown Foxburg Pennsylvania. That’s a 1911 antique Steinway grand that John Burg is playing.

Our recent trip also took us to a small, one-main-street town in western Pennsylvania named Foxburg, which is undergoing a remarkable rebirth.

Foxburg is located at the confluence of the Allegheny and Clarion rivers about an hour and a half north east of Pittsburg. This part of the country was home to the original oil boom in the last part of the nineteenth century and became quite wealthy as a result.

However as oil production moved to the larger more productive fields out west, the birthplace of the American oil industry literally dried up.

Several years ago, Nancy and I had designed and built a large conservatory for someone who had moved back to the area after a very successful career away from his hometown and was now engaged in an almost single handed revitalization project of the entire town of Foxburg. An excellent new restaurant alongside the river, a new Inn on the single main street, a winery, a pizzaria and a quaint antique shop in an old bank building now grace the main street where visitors rent Segue scooters and tour the nearby restored Foxburg estate – with its new conservatory.

The town draws a considerable crowd from all over the region and is quite crowded on weekends. I learned that there was a recent Scottish Festival with traditional clan gatherings, sheep dog trials and dancing! An Art, Wine and Food Festival will be held on October 11th.

The town is also home to the oldest golf course in continuous operation in the country.

The cultural arm of their efforts named the Allegheny Riverstone Center for the Arts purchased and renovated an old library auditorium which became known as Lincoln Hall and has staged an impressive variety of concerts with music from Mozart to jazz to madrigals and include regular visits by members of the Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra.

A really impressive feature of the new hall is a huge old Wurlitzer theater organ that was lovingly restored by Paul McKissick and includes all the associated drums, cymbals, bells and automatic piano. I understand that acclaimed organists from around the country regularly make their way to Foxburg to play on this remarkable instrument. The organ restoration took Mr. McKissick ten years to complete and it is now one of only twelve functioning Wurlitzer theater organs in the world.

Harold Betters, a Pittsburg native, is a remarkable jazz icon having played with the great Louis Armstong as well as Al Hirt, Slide Hampton, Ramsey Lewis and Ray Charles. The night Nancy and I were there, he brought the house down with hits ranging from Louis Armstrong’s rendition of Tenderly to Mustang Sally and Kansas City.

This town is definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in the area or just looking for an interesting weekend getaway. Seeing the great Wurlitzer organ played is by itself worth the trip. Visit their website www.alleghenyriverstone.org for details on upcoming activities and events.

Alan

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend a day in Hartford, Connecticut and decided to visit the Mark Twain home which has been turned into a wonderful museum.

Aside from my admiration of the humor and wit of this insightful, original American, his home sports a small conservatory which I’ve always wanted to see.

The home is a typical Victorian style red brick mini mansion built in a then fashionable part of town inhabited by avant-garde personalities, writers and activists. Twains neighbor in the Nook Farm neighborhood was Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin), whom he reportedly despised.

Shortly after Twain’s arrival, the city of Hartford was to become one of the wealthiest areas in the country. Twain hired New York architect Edward Tuckerman Potter to design the home which was completed in 1874. It was elaborately decorated using brickwork patterns and motifs in the intricate woodwork.

The house was so expensive to construct that by the time Twain and his family were ready to move in, there was no money left to cover the walls with wallpaper. However, by 1881, with the success of his new book “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, the family had the financial recourses to complete the interiors.

He hired Louis C. Tiffany & Co., Associated Artists to handle all the interior decoration. Associated Artists was a one stop shop for the luxury home décor handling painting and stenciling, flooring, custom designed wallpapers, metal work and the specialty glasswork that Tiffany later became so well known for.

Some interesting aspects of the house (aside from the conservatory) are its technologically advanced features. “New technologies were employed which included a gravity flow heat system, split flues to allow for windows over two fireplaces, and seven bathrooms with flush toilets.” In addition, “Twain was both proud of, and flummoxed by, his telephone”, one of the first installed in a private home.

Considered in conjunction with his profoundly new way of writing and his increasingly progressive social and political views, the house is most clearly viewed in its fullest, as a true modern landmark of new American thought.

More on the work and home of this remarkable American can be seen at: www.marktwainhouse.org

Alan