Morel & Associates Pipe Organ Builder

Morel & Associates Pipe Organ Builder Organ Builder Since 1921 Founded by Fred H. Meunier in 1921. Meunier began his career with the Knight-Campbell Music Co. In 1919 he moved on to the Charles E. Mr.

in 1908 as a 16-year-old elevator operator. He quickly moved up to technician status working on pianos, player pianos, automatic musical instruments, and pipe organs. Wells Music Co. and then, in 1921, formed his own company specializing in pipe organs only. In those days, pipe organs were found not only in the traditional church setting, but also in theaters, where they were used to accompany sil

ent films, and in private homes. During the period from 1921 to 1960, Mr. Meunier installed 90% of all of the pipe organs in the rocky mountain region, representing such companies as Wurlitzer of North Tonawanda, New York, Robert Morton of Van Nuys, California (Theater organs) W.W. Kimball of Chicago, The Reuter Organ Co. of Lawrence, Kansas (Church organs) and the Aeolian Co. of New York (Residence organs). Some of the more notable instruments installed and maintained by Mr. Meunier were: Denver Municipal Auditorium, St. John's Episcopal Cathedral, Denver, First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs, and Montview Presbyterian Church, Denver. Fred Meunier retired in 1960 and sold the business to two key employees, Hugh R. Turpin and Ivan P. Morel. Turpin received his early training in England with the firm of Hill, Norman and Beard, Ltd. Turpin was trained as an organ voicer and after leaving England, worked for the Standaart and Austin Companies in the U.S. before coming to work for Meunier in 1953. Morel was a second-generation organ builder from Boston specializing in installation and service work. The Morel family had been associated with Casavant Frères Organ builders in Canada since the 1890's. The name of the firm was changed to Fred H. Meunier & Associates. The firm continued its association with the Reuter Organ Co. and was responsible for the sales and installation of new organs in such locations as Central Presbyterian Church, Denver. Colorado Woman's College, Denver, (now Johnson and Wales) and American Lutheran Church, Billings, Montana. In addition to new organ installations, major restorations/renovations were carried out on the four manual Austin organ in Macky Auditorium, University of Colorado, Trinity United Methodist Church, Denver, and Grace Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Following Mr. Turpin's retirement in 1972, the name of the company was changed to Ivan P. Morel & Associates in order to better reflect the current and future management of the firm. Throughout the 1970's and until 1985, the firm continued its association with the Reuter Co. of Lawrence Kansas, culminating with the installation of the four manual, 60 stop, Reuter Organ at Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, in 1985. At that time the firm ended it's relationship with Reuter in order to concentrate on building new instruments under it's own name as well as continuing work in the area of restoration/renovation.

Colorado lost a very prominent figure in the organ building and Service world in December with the passing of Norman Lan...
01/15/2024

Colorado lost a very prominent figure in the organ building and Service world in December with the passing of Norman Lane at the age of 86. The January issue of the Drawknob, the newsletter of the Denver Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Guild of Organists had a very nice tribute to Norman featuring memories of Norman from his friends and colleagues.

I got to thinking; I wonder if Larry Burt had anything in his archives about Norman, and sure enough, there is a file on the Charles Anderson organ built in 1887 for the Unitarian Church, located at 19th and Broadway in Denver. Norman purchased and removed the Anderson while still in college. Among other items, the file included a clipping from the Denver Post’s Empire Magazine, a hand written stoplist, and a color photo of the organ in the church. I know the organ was partially erected and stored at CU in Boulder for a time, and then later moved to storage elsewhere. Maybe someone out there knows of its current location.

It’s been over a year since I’ve posted anything to our company page. It’s been almost a year since we began t...
12/22/2023

It’s been over a year since I’ve posted anything to our company page. It’s been almost a year since we began the restoration of Austin’s Opus 92 at the Gardens at St. Elizabeth. We’ve accomplished a lot in that time, and we’re getting closer to completing the shop work and begin the reinstallation process. The manual wind chests and the façade pipes are the last two major items to be completed. Don Belshaw has been responsible for the bulk of the in-shop work including the console, the typical massive Austin reservoir, and the refinishing of the organ’s casework. Don is currently working on restoration of the manual wind chests. Todd Evers is refinishing the 39 zinc pipes which make up the façade at his workshop in Strasburg, Colorado.

Finally, we'd like to wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Often, when I do a post here, I get a nice comment from Joanne Morel saying: “Bob would have loved this”. Bob was my co...
12/08/2022

Often, when I do a post here, I get a nice comment from Joanne Morel saying: “Bob would have loved this”. Bob was my cousin, Bob Morel, also an organ builder who worked with his father, Robert G. Morel, as well as his brother, Denis Morel in the Boston area. Got me to thinking that I should post something about the Morel heritage in organ building. Our grandfather, J.A.R. (Raoul) Morel went to work for Casavant Freres in Staint-Hyacinthe Quebec, in 1899. His brother, Lorenzo Morel, had joined Casavant in 1891. Both worked in the factory at first, and then on the road installing new organs. At some point, Lorenzo moved to Toronto to represent Casavant, and then later, build organs under his own name. Raoul moved to Boston to represent Casavant in the early 1920’s. His oldest son, Robert G. Morel followed his father in the business, and later, my father Ivan P. Morel, joined Robert when our grandfather was forced to retire because of his health. When his two sons, Bob and Denis, came into the business, my father decided to leave the family business and move to Denver in 1956 to work for Fred Meunier. When Fred retired in 1960, Ivan, along with Hugh Turpin purchased the business and it was renamed Fred H. Meunier & Associates. The name was changed to Morel & Associates following Hugh’s retirement in the early 1970’s.

I want to post more photos of the items in the Turpin Museum, but first I’d like to post the following because I don’t t...
11/29/2022

I want to post more photos of the items in the Turpin Museum, but first I’d like to post the following because I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before.

Early in 2016, as the RTD was completing the “A” line to the airport, (Which, by the way runs right by our shop) we were contacted by a gentleman named Erik Carlson. Erik had been awarded the commission to do the artwork for the 40th and Colorado station. Here is an excerpt from an email he sent to us in January of 2016:

“This is where you may come in: for the artwork, I'm looking at local businesses for whom some form of hand tools are important and I was thrilled when I came across you guys -- what a unique business to find in the neighborhood! I am particularly interested in locally-based businesses: small businesses doing hands-on work, and producing unique or locally-based products or services. Ultimately I'll be photographing the actual tool for the artwork, then reproducing the photos onto monumentally-scaled light boxes at the light rail station."

Long story short, we emailed back and forth a couple of times (Erik was located in Rhode Island) and we sent him photos of some of the tools we have in the Hugh Turpin Museum, as well as tools we use every day. Erik decided on two of them to be photographed, and both of them are represented by his artwork at the station. The proportional dividers are not unique to the organ business, but the tuning cone certainly is.

More from the Larry Burt Archives: An article from the Denver Post Religion Section dated Saturday, October 31, 1964. ...
11/21/2022

More from the Larry Burt Archives: An article from the Denver Post Religion Section dated Saturday, October 31, 1964. This was Larry’s second church organ project following the organ at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Denver, and his move to Broomfield in the early 60’s. The article mentions that the organ will be played in church for the first time on Thanksgiving.

Another Kimball catalog from the Fred Meunier archives. This one concentrates on smaller organs. And, even included a p...
11/17/2022

Another Kimball catalog from the Fred Meunier archives. This one concentrates on smaller organs. And, even included a price list!

An essential factor in Pipe Organ Building is, and always has been, the “Supply” house. Both large and small builders h...
11/10/2022

An essential factor in Pipe Organ Building is, and always has been, the “Supply” house. Both large and small builders have taken advantage of their offerings as these companies can supply everything from tiny wood screws to complete organs. Several of them happened to be located both then and now in Erie, Pennsylvania. Both the Larry Burt and Fred Meunier archives contain several copies of their catalogs over the years. Fred’s archive also included a photo album showing various consoles and percussion actions. The album is not dated, but due to the several photos of Theater style consoles as well as photos of chimes, a xylophone, and finally, what was known as a “Toy Counter”, my guess is that it was from the 1920’s.

The catalog pages are from a National Organ Supply Company/Organ Supply Corporation catalog from 1939/1940. I’m posting only the pages relating to the organ pipes they offered as I think it’s interesting to see not only the wide range of pipes they offered, but also the pricing which I’m sure reflects the economy at the end of the great depression.

When Hugh Turpin retired from Morel & Associates in 1972, he donated all of the organ related items he had collected dur...
11/04/2022

When Hugh Turpin retired from Morel & Associates in 1972, he donated all of the organ related items he had collected during his career to the University of Colorado. After a number of years, the room at CU where the collection was housed was needed for other purposes, and the “Hugh Turpin Museum” made it’s way to Morel & Associates.

One of the items is Hugh’s “Indenture of Apprenticeship” document with the English firm of Wm. Hill & Son & Norman & Beard Ltd.

There are a lot of photographs of what must have been factory events showing large groups of workers, but not in work clothes. There are individual photos of John and Arthur Rundle, two generations of reed voicers for the firm, who not only taught Hugh a great deal about reed voicing, but became good friends.

Finally, from this stage of Hugh’s career, is a small booklet titled; “Defence of the Realm Permit Book”. Issued to John Rundle in 1917, apparently this was needed in order for John Rundle to travel to Ireland to tune an organ!

Larry Burt had a file labeled “Theater Organs” in his archive, and in that file, were a few clippings regarding the thre...
09/22/2022

Larry Burt had a file labeled “Theater Organs” in his archive, and in that file, were a few clippings regarding the three manual, 13 rank, Wurlitzer Organ installed in the Three Coins Restaurant in Louisville, Colorado in 1965-66. An essential part of that enterprise was Dick Hull. Dick was a wonderful person and an extremely talented organist. Dick worked for Morel & Associates before and after his time at the Three Coins. The news clippings are from Larry’s files, and the menu and other items are from Morel and Associates archives. The tune list from his Three Coins album is from the website, Discogs.

When I posted the link to the AGO article from their website, I didn't realize that one had to have a user name and pass...
09/20/2022

When I posted the link to the AGO article from their website, I didn't realize that one had to have a user name and password to read the article, so, I'm going to post the pages from the article here.

Continuing on the subject of the Marvel's Laukhuff Tracker, once again, the Larry Burt archives provided some history on...
09/20/2022

Continuing on the subject of the Marvel's Laukhuff Tracker, once again, the Larry Burt archives provided some history on these little organs. Larry had saved several Organ Supply, Klann, and Durst catalogs over the years. The 1960 Durst catalog had a page devoted to the organ, and also offered a Brochure describing the organ.

There is a very interesting article in the August 2022 issue of the American guild of Organists magazine titled “Pulling...
09/20/2022

There is a very interesting article in the August 2022 issue of the American guild of Organists magazine titled “Pulling Out All the Stops —A Tale of a Pipe Organ Donor”, by Kim Marvel.

While it is not mentioned in the article, Morel and Associates had a connection to the Marvel’s and their Laukhuff organ.

In the early 1980’s, the Marvels were living in Denver, and preparing for a trip to Australia. By that time, the little organ had developed some problems with its toe boards. Over the years they had warped, and there was just as much (if not a bit more) wind leaking out the sides of the toe boards than entering the toes of the pipes. The solution was to fit slider seals to the toe boards, which was done in our shop while the Marvel’s were out of the country. We delivered the organ to their new residence in Santa Fe in 1983, and tuned it a couple of times after that.

Address

4221 Steele Street
Denver, CO
80216

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

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+13033553852

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