My grandfather, Sam Kuhn, married my grandmother, then Minette Stroock, around 1920. They were from well-to-do families, and received a Steinway baby grand piano as a wedding present. By the time I first remember seeing it in the 1960s, my grandmother and her decorator had replaced its original black finish with a bright red, meant to resemble a Japanese lacquered box.
When Sam died in the 1970s, the piano moved to my family’s living room in Princeton. Since I was the only person who (sort of) played the piano in my generation, it came to me when I had a place for it, in the mid-1990s. I moved it four times since. Our current house is not small, but the living room couldn’t accommodate both it and living. So it lived in a corner of the dining room starting in 2010. In addition to be impractically large, time had taken a toll on its mechanics since being rebuilt in the 1970s, and the lacquer red had faded unevenly to a kind of orange. It took a lot of patience, but I was finally ready to part with it last year.
To bring it up to a fully playable standard would have cost about twice value. We were reluctant to put in that much investment, and so were the potential donation recipients we considered. So we were very fortunate to be able to donate it to the North Bennet Street School (NBSS), where students in their Advanced Piano Technology training program learn how to bring it and pianos like it back to fully-functioning life. Once it’s served in that capacity, it will be sold to help keep the school going.
We were delighted that we were able to see it and some of the folks working on it when we visited NBSS’s open house. This is what the piano looked like on Dec 7, 2024:
On the left is Debbie Cyr, co-chair of NBSS’s Piano Technology program, who originally accepted our piano. On the right is Jacob, one of the students working on restoring it.
Here’s Jacob, telling us about the work on the action:
And here’s Debbie, describing next steps:
(Yes, it will be refinished, but apparently not by NBSS students.)
NBSS was founded in 1881, and it is an amazing institution. In addition to Piano Technology, its career training programs span Carpentry, Preservation Carpentry, Cabinet & Furniture Making, Bookbinding, Jewelry Making & Repair, Locksmithing & Security Technology, and Violin Making & Repair. In addition, they have community education programs, for those of us who are not going into full-time training.
It’s a particularly fitting spot for the Kuhn piano, because Sam Kuhn was an accomplished amateur cabinetmaker, and he was devoted to giving people opportunities to learn and practice the craft. In the 1960s, long before the term “maker space” entered our vocabulary, he spearheaded “Your Workshop” in New York City, where members could come and build things, getting guidance from resident professionals. My sister Sarah donated some Danish modern woodworking plans that he had to NBSS. The other big family connection to NBSS is that Sarah was interviewed by NBSS’s Kristen Odle for their series “In the Making” in November 2023. You can watch the video here, and see more about Sarah here.