If you’ve attended a church service in Northeast Ohio, chances are you’ve heard a Schantz Organ. The Orrville company that makes pipe organs is marking 145 years in business and is now under its fourth generation of leadership.
Old world qualities
The company has been making the instruments since 1873, when all that surrounded its Orrville business were corn fields. Now, the brick building with its simple Schantz Organ sign in black letters out front is surrounded by residential homes.
And the company itself has changed little since the days when anyone with means had a pipe organ in their home. “The floor creaks and on certain days when there’s things going on downstairs, you can see light coming up from the cracks in the floor, it’s very old-world,” says tonal director Jeffrey Dexter.
Jeffrey Dexteris Schantz’s vice…
