From Texas Public Radio:
Just off of downtown San Antonio in the Historic King William neighborhood is a house overflowing with history and antique music. It’s Villa Finale, Italian for “final home,” which the National Trust for Historic Preservation has named a historic site.
This is where San Antonio preservationist Walter Nold Mathis created a pocket of frozen time. The 1876 mansion is densely packed with an impressive assemblage of decorative fine art from centuries past.
Off the main staircase is a wooden contraption the size of a closet.
“This is Deluxe Model Violano Virtuoso. It’s a deluxe model because it has two violins in front and in the back is a full piano board,” said Sylvia M. Gonzalez-Pizaña, the manager of collections and interpretation at Villa Finale: Museum and Gardens.
With a flick of a switch, a paper roll unspooled and the 1925 jazz standard “Sweet Georgia Brown” was reproduced.
This precursor to the jukebox used to jam at the legendary Albert Friedrich’s Buckhorn Saloon. But when Prohibition was enacted, the saloon shut down, and the music machine was bought by the Koehler family of the Pearl Brewery.
“And at some point, they found out that Mathis had purchased this big house, Villa Finale, and they told him, ‘Hey, do you want this music box?’ Mathis, who was an avid collector, said, ‘Of course.’ Did he realize it was this big? Probably not,” Gonzalez-Pizaña explained.
The Mills Novelty Company proclaimed this was one of the “greatest achievements in the history of music” and manufactured about 5,000 of them.
The machines excite the eye as much as the ear. Behind the glass there is a dance of brass levers, struts and metal rods. The strings of the violin are played by a rotating baton operated by small motors.
Different notes are achieved with metal tabs and electro-magnets fingering the neck. The notes of the piano are also operated by electro-magnets. The music is programmed on a paper roll which automatically rewinds.