The Aeolian Co.
Opus 1328, 1929

It is unclear from the photo in the Aeolian collection held in the American Organ Archives, where the organ was located, but it was obviously not within the room. It could have been in the cellar or the floor above, speaking through tone chutes and grills in either the ceiling or the floor, or in an adjoining chamber speaking through grills covered by the enormous hanging tapestries in the room. It's too bad Aeolian didn't photograph the console for posterity.

Transplanted note from a related OHS Database entry:

Scot Huntington on April 22nd, 2025: This entry regards the rebuild of the 1915 Aeolian purchased by Henry Bradford Plant's father, railroad and steamship magnate Morgan. F. Plant for installation in his 1903, $3 million mansion, Branford (Avery Point/Groton, Conn.). The elder Plant died in 1918 in the Swine Flu epidemic and the property passed to his son Henry The 1929 contract was signed by H. Plant's wife, Mae (1894-1981) in June 1929 for re-installation in Sept. The contract for $8,290 was to replace the notoriously unreliable Aeolian ventil chests with the new Aeolian pitman chests, developed just the year before. Henry died young of sleeping sickness in 1938 and his wife (remarried 1941) gave the vast estate to the State of Connecticut which in turn leased it to the Coast Guard from 1942-1967. A new lighthouse and barracks were built on the property where it was used for officer training and undersea dynamite demolition training on nearby Pine Island. In 1967 the Coast Guard returned the property to the state which in turn gave it to the University of Connecticut. The University established their Avery Point branch on the estate, primarily devoted to Maritime study.

While in the care of the Coast Guard, the organ was removed from the house an installed at an unknown date in the Coast Guard Academy Chapel across the Thames River in New London. The chapel was begun on a meager Congressional appropriation in 1938, paused during the War and finally completed in 1948. The organ was rebuilt for the Coast Guard Chapel in the American Classic style by Chester Raymond (Princeton, N.J.) in 1952. It was unnecessarily replaced by an imitation (now failing in 2025) and junked in 2000.

It is not known if the chest duplexing was retained in the new chests, but following the Raymond rebuild, (presumably reusing the relatively new pitman chests), there is no manual duplexing or Echo division, and the third manual Choir is independent and straight.

This entry represents the rebuilding of an existing organ by the original builder, and for the same location (which had previously been errantly attributed to New London, CT. when in fact it had always been in Groton (Eastern Point), CT.