It didn't take long for Lee University Chancellor and retired President Paul Conn to think of where he might place a rare 1866 Steinway piano on the Cleveland, Tennessee, campus when he was being offered it as a donation for the school. He knew the lobby of the Dixon Center would be the perfect place.
"This is such a unique space, and we've had pieces here before, but they were never quite right," he said while admiring the rare instrument late last week.
"We wanted something special in here, but we didn't know what. Now we do."
Locating a home for the piano turned out to be the easy part. Transporting it from a resort in the Tellico Plains area of East Tennessee would prove to be the difficult part.
The 1866 Model D full concert grand No. 15953 piano was donated to the school a little more than three years ago by Cleveland businessman Johnny Holden. Holden has owned the piano twice in the past several years and donated it to the school after reacquiring it. Part of the reason it came back into his possession is that the family of Bonnie Matchulat, the woman he sold it to several years ago, didn't know what to do with it after she died.
"They couldn't budge it," he said with a laugh.
Holden contacted the Steinway Piano Gallery in Nashville, and he said a dozen men had to take the legs off the more-than-9-foot long piano and turn it on its side to move it to Cleveland and Lee University.
Holden, 81, first acquired the piano about 15 years ago after attending a private event in Sevierville, Tennessee.
"My wife and I couldn't stop admiring the piano, and some time later the owner was in some financial trouble. I lent him the money, but I had a UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) on the piano and some silverware, and he later defaulted."
Holden, a Chattanooga Central grad, said he was the singer in a rock 'n' roll band called Johnny and The Viva Tones that played around the South while he was in high school and college at Middle Tennessee State University. He said while he can peck out a tune on the piano, he doesn't consider himself a player. In fact, he wasn't looking to buy the piano but was glad he had gotten it as collateral for the loan.
He was also glad to sell it to Matchulat, who had made it known to him she wanted to buy it just he as had expressed interest to the man he originally got it from. Today, Holden is proud to see it in the lobby of the Dixon Center.
"I think it's perfect right here," Holden said.
Conn agrees. The school, which has become known for producing a slew of talented vocalists, has the piano tuned and maintained regularly and "it gets played occasionally," Conn said. "Something else, we use this 500-seat facility for all kinds of events, and there are people walking by it all the time. Everyone admires it, and no one has ever done anything that might harm it."
Holden was unaware of the piano's history prior to his first acquiring it, but the university had the piano appraised by the same folks in Nashville that arranged to move it. It is believed that only six were made, and the appraiser wrote in his report that he could only find one in existence that was a close match. As for its value, he wrote that an antique 1876 centennial edition, of which there were about 400 made, and of which he wrote in his report is "not quite as rare as your piano," had been priced at $150,000.
He also noted that an 1882 rare Gilded age Steinway Model B in original condition had been priced at $1,200,000, and an 1893 Art case Model A had been priced at $700,000, while an 1891 Art case Model D had been priced at $1,000,000.
"We don't really know what it is worth, but we are proud to have it," Conn said.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354. Follow him on Twitter @BarryJC.