A few weeks ago, I went to visit the Clock House via a tour through Baltimore Heritage. This is a privately owned house in Charles Village in Baltimore that is owned by a man named Durward Center. As a child, he was fascinated by electric fans, of all things. He witnessed the installation of a pipe organ in the church of his native Kentucky home and built one in his parents' barn. He then went to work for the Smithsonian after college and began collecting: clock tower mechanisms, pipe organs, electric fans... Bizarre yet amazingly fascinating at the same time.
Firstly, I love light fixtures and apparently so does Mr. Center.
He also had some spare lightbulbs lying around
and a giant collection of these temperature thingies which were hanging
everywhere, especially in the transom window areas above the doorways. (a very clever idea)
There were many clocks, small and large.
This one had his name on it!
The Dragon tower clock mechanism is shown above. It reached over two stories of his house as did two other tower clocks which were installed in the house. The two other clocks had pendulums which swung between floors. There was an aperture in the ceiling of both the dining room and Mr. Center's bedroom which was big enough for the pendulums to swing over the dining room table and his bed, respectively.
The counterweights for one of the tower clocks ran down alongside the three-floor staircase.
In addition to clocks, Mr. Center collected boat propellers, electric fans (an entire room's worth)
statues of either Daedalus or Icarus (or both),
pipe organs
and sheet music for said organs.
Here are a trio of videos. The first is VERY LOUD and shows the inner workings of an old street organ from the Netherlands and made me feel like I was there again.
Notice the blue cards that feed into the organ as sheet music.
The second is VERY LOUD and shows the front of the Dutch organ.
This one shows the inner workings of his giant pipe organ that was like one of seven total of its kind which still exists or something like that.
If this doesn't get you into the Christmas spirit, I can't help you.
He also had some spare lightbulbs lying around
and a giant collection of these temperature thingies which were hanging
everywhere, especially in the transom window areas above the doorways. (a very clever idea)
There were many clocks, small and large.
This one had his name on it!
The Dragon tower clock mechanism is shown above. It reached over two stories of his house as did two other tower clocks which were installed in the house. The two other clocks had pendulums which swung between floors. There was an aperture in the ceiling of both the dining room and Mr. Center's bedroom which was big enough for the pendulums to swing over the dining room table and his bed, respectively.
The counterweights for one of the tower clocks ran down alongside the three-floor staircase.In addition to clocks, Mr. Center collected boat propellers, electric fans (an entire room's worth)
statues of either Daedalus or Icarus (or both),
pipe organs
and sheet music for said organs.
Here are a trio of videos. The first is VERY LOUD and shows the inner workings of an old street organ from the Netherlands and made me feel like I was there again.Notice the blue cards that feed into the organ as sheet music.
The second is VERY LOUD and shows the front of the Dutch organ.
This one shows the inner workings of his giant pipe organ that was like one of seven total of its kind which still exists or something like that.
If this doesn't get you into the Christmas spirit, I can't help you.
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