Complete with three rows of keyboards, two rows of “stop tabs” and large floor pedals, the organ’s console sits polished and ready in one corner of the basement of Russ and Jo Ann Evans’ Kenmore home.

But the console is easily the smallest piece of the 1924 Wurlitzer theater organ Russ Evans has been building and rebuilding since at least 1984.

What the console controls is a labyrinth of 1,208 pipes that fill from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling virtually every inch of a large room next to the console. The pipes vary from a few inches in height and width to running from the floor to the ceiling and displaying the girth of old-fashioned stove pipes.

When the organ is fired up with a five-horsepower blower supplying the air to the dozens and dozens of pipes, the sound is clear and melodic. But a listener also can’t help but note the sound is LOUD.

Russ has replaced one wall of the pipe room with a sort of Venetian blind system of vertical, moving panels that allow only a certain amount of the organ’s sound to escape. But open the main door to the pipe room when the organ is playing and … the sound released easily could fill a 3,000-seat theater to the nosebleed seats way in the back, which, of course, is exactly what it originally was meant to do.

Both Russ and Jo Ann are active members of the Puget Sound Theater Organ Society, which will host a national convention for theater organ enthusiasts next year. Note that the group’s interest lies in theater organs, not church or other types of pipe organs.

In the heyday of silent cinema from about 1908 to 1927, Russ said the organs basically provided the soundtrack for those silent movies.

“It was setting a mood,” Russ said, adding the organs could accent romantic trysts or chase scenes. Both Russ and Jo Ann said theater organs basically were intended to replace full-sized orchestras. The pipes of the Evans’ installation consist of 18 ranks, each rank having one pipe for every key on the console. Each rank has its own “voice,” Russ said, meant to reproduce the sound of a specific instrument, those instruments ranging from trumpets to violins to flutes. Basically, an 18-rank organ can make the same music as an 18-piece orchestra.

The organ also handily recreates various sound effects from car horns to police sirens to train whistles. In between the pipes are various types of tuned percussion instruments: sleigh bells, a glockenspiel and various drums, all controlled by the console and air-powered striking mechanisms. Between the console and all that piping and instrumentation is a wall of probably a 100 or so circuit boards that help control everything. Russ figures the installation contains miles of wiring and air tubing.

Jo Ann said the Evans’ console originally was used at the still-existing State Theater in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The theater now hosts plays and off-Broadway productions, but in the early 1900s it also doubled as a silent movie theater, which is where the organ came in handy. Only the Evans’ console comes from Cleveland and spent about 15 years sitting ignored in a storage unit. Russ cobbled together parts of various other organs for the piping, some from a restaurant in Tacoma, among other sources.

While Russ has built and maintains the installation, Jo Ann does most of the actual playing. They both are at work planning for the national convention next year. The last one was held in Cleveland and attended by about 400 or so people. According to Jo Ann, Seattle actually has a pretty significant background in regard to theater organs. Few theaters still have working units, Russ said, but one sits in the Paramount Theater in downtown Seattle, which still uses its instrument for silent movie nights.

Perhaps even more importantly, what Jo Ann described as the first truly successful Wurlitzer was installed in Seattle in 1914, a model which eventually allowed that company to dominate the organ business for years to come. The organ now sits in Spokane, which for next year’s convention visitors means a road trip.

The Evans’ interest in organs goes back quite a way. Now retired, they had three Evans Music stores in the Seattle area. Russ isn’t sure how much time he devotes to keeping the organ up and running, but he also helps restore instruments for other installations.

“Everybody who has a hobby is just a little bit nuts,” Jo Ann said with a smile.

For more information, visit the Puget Sound Organ Web site at www.pstos.org.