Tour Day -- Nethercutt Museum

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(The Master’s College)

Wednesday we (all of us) went to a piano recital by two of the college students. They said they need to practice performing, and it’s much easier to do that with an audience, so they invited the RVICS. They played very well, and then they visited with us about their programs, plans and practice. They also told us about the Steinway piano they were playing on: it was the piano used by the composer of the melody for the Lord’s Prayer. The composer sat in an arm chair, laid a board across the handles of his chair (that’s here too) and would play some and then write down what he’d played. His family donated it to The Master’s College, but at that time it was painted green. They also donated money to help defray the cost of restoring it, inside and out (total cost $14,000.) It goes without saying that it’s a gorgeous instrument.

Friday~~tour day! This week we didn’t do a train/subway/bus trip (man that was fun!) but drove to Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar (that’s also part of Santa Clarita!) The Nethercutt family was part of Merle Norman cosmetics. The museum is three stories high, with the first story housing vintage cars; their collection houses more that 250 cars, and they rotate them in and out of the museum. This museum is a functional collection, meaning everything in the museum is in working order. They have 20 people who work full-time to restore the cars, and keep them running. The cars were interesting to look at, but also they had details about each car, including the original price~~that was interesting to see. The cars had steering wheels on the left, or the right, or a few even had them in the middle of the seat. Between 1904 and 1920 the car makers could choose where they wanted to put them, but then people started saying they wanted cars that would let the passengers off on the curb, rather than the middle of the road, so the placement became standardized. I have quite a few car pictures, because they were the easiest to take. After that things were a bit crowded. Plus, it’s kept dim on the upper floors, and you’re not allowed to use flash cameras, as they damage the items. The mezzanine housed over a thousand hood ornaments, as well as Dorothy Nethercutt’s collection of porcelain flowers, and clocks, and more things than we had time to see. (the tours are guided through this part of the museum) The top floor is where we spent the most time, and it was rare musical instruments. I wish I could show you some of the things we saw, but again, the pictures just didn’t work. There was a music box collection, and they weren’t music boxes like I know: some of them were large enough to stand on the floor! Also there was one as small as a thimble, which was also in working order. There were instruments called orchestrates (I'm sorry, I think that’s what they were called, and I feel so inept at trying to describe them, but here goes) The largest was as large as 20’ long, and 10’ high, and it housed an orchestra. The largest held 24 different instruments, including drums, an organ, two accordions, cymbals, at least three xylophones (bless the inventor of spell-check) They were popular in Austria, and were the predecessors of juke boxes. They had such rich tone, and put out beautiful music. Ok, I quit with that! I’ll put on the pictures I have…

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Photos

I know this is fuzzy,
(it's that flash thing, and I'm sure you don't want to hear about it again!) It's taken from the staircase going to the messanine, and I included it not only to show more cars, but to show the marble and granite used on the first floor. One wall was two stories tall, and it was all mirror. They said it built like an auto showroom in the early 1900s.

Isn't this a cute car?
Oh, don't even think you're going to get the year or make of the cars. Of course it was on the sign in front of each one, but I only remember the important stuff. This one had black and white stripes, with very thin red stripes between. What more could you wonder?

Some of the cars had a mirror on either side,
I wondered what you did with the mirror if the spare tires were being used. Putting them on the tire was very common.

Ok, they weren't all cars!
No details on this, either. I'm sorry.

None of us were interested in buying this!
Which, was made by Pierce-Arrow in 1936, and only cost $1283.00 brand new. But we still weren't interested.

These cabinets were filled with village houses.
And there were two more of the same. Needless to say, I spent more time looking at them than Bob did! They were on the first floor with the cars. (probably another reason you don't get more details on the cars!)

This organ sat in the middle of the third floor.
I'm talking smack-dab in the middle, and as if that didn't make it feel grand enough, it was on a platform that would rise when the organ began to play. There were 5,000 pipes played by this organ. They were housed in rooms off to the side, and we could only see into two of the rooms. They have free concerts several times a month.

The museum was in two buildings,
on different sides of the street. This one held only cars, except for a restored train car outside the back. There was no charge for either building, and the concerts are free also.

Comments

[anonymous]

Sylmar is NOT part of Santa Clarita. Sylmar is officially a neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles.