Recently Dave Krall asked for information regarding Henry Ford's
3-manual 31-rank Estey residence organ, built in 1914 [170726
MMDigest].  According to Rollin Smith's informative book, 'Pipe
Organs Of The Rich And Famous' (Organ Historical Society, 2014),
the organ, on removal from the Ford estate 'Fair Lane', was
installed in the chapel of Outer Drive Faith Lutheran Church in
Detroit; I have no idea if it is still there (the church is still
there, according to the Internet) and would be very interested to
hear if this is the case.

There is a whole chapter on this organ in Smith's book and it makes
for sad reading; The installation was beset with problems and the
organ rarely worked properly, suffering from extremes of humidity.
Ford stated he was 'disgusted' with it!  I recommend this book to
anyone interested in residence organs.

In 1917, the organ was retro-fitted with Estey's new, fully-automatic
player system, with the console being altered to accommodate the new
rolls.  Presumably this is the 125-note system which Dave Krall mentions.
Apparently the system provided for 12 pre-set stop combinations to be
selected by the roll, plus automatic control of the swell shutters and
automatic reroll.

I have never examined an Estey player organ, but I had always understood
that the standard Estey rolls were virtually interchangeable with
Aeolian 116-note rolls, and that Aeolian were very unhappy about this!

Greetings from the UK,
Rowland Lee