ACME, Mich. (Michigan Back Roads) – The “crown jewel” of the Music House Museum in Acme, Michigan is a rare Belgian Mortier Dance Organ known as the “Amaryllis.” Mostly found in mainland Europe in the early 1900s, a dance organ is a mechanical organ designed to be used in a dance hall or ballroom.

Making music.

The organ is entirely mechanical. There are no electric motors. The whole thing is operated by a hand-crafted flywheel. This Amaryllis is a 97 key organ. To produce music, a “music book” was fed into the organ. The “music book” consisted of heavy paper folded over and over with holes punched into it, much like a “player piano” might use. A man stood behind the façade and cranked the flywheel at a specific speed. This fed the “music book” through the mechanism and “ta da”, music!

Unique songs.

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Each organ had a unique music book of songs. The songs might be the same from organ to organ, but the coding would be different in each book. The upshot was that a music book would only work in the specific organ it was created for. Organ owners were unable to swap music books to get more variety. If they wanted new music, they had to order a new music book specifically for their organ.

There were only about 1,400 of these instruments constructed and each was built for a specific location. The “Amaryllis” was made for the Victorian Palace Dance Hall in Ypres, Belgium in 1922. It is 30 feet wide and 18 feet tall, most of that size is façade. The device that actually produces the music is only a few feet in size. Of those built only 24 of these huge machines are still in existence.

Visit the museum.

The Music House Museum, located at 7377 US Highway 31 N in Williamsburg, is housed in a restored dairy barn that was part of the historic Stiffler Family farm. The granary serves as the Museum’s main entrance.

Inside is a vast collection of vintage and automated musical instruments, many one of a kind. Each has been restored using authentic materials. In addition to the instruments, the museum exhibits phonographs, jukeboxes, and radios. Another unique exhibit is the Miniature City, offering a back-in-the-day look at Traverse City.