It all began with a house fire.
On April 25th, 2018, a beautiful home on the water in Rosedale, Gig Harbor caught fire. The fire raged so hot that the homeowners’ RV melted into a puddle in the garage, and firefighters called for the assistance of a fire barge to spray the water side of the house with cold saltwater from Puget Sound. In the process, the spray from the barge came through the living room wall and ran down the lid of a flame mahogany 1925 Steinway Model L piano, soaking the soundboard and causing it to crack from the shock.
Though the back curve of the piano had blistered from the heat, the piano survived the soot-water damage and was even playable in the rubble. It was out of tune and sticky, but Arukah restoration was possible.
My mentor, Loren Kelley, was giving me a tuning lesson when I first learned about it. “Hey, Jordan… are you interested in a restoration project?” It had been several months since the fire happened, and the piano had been barely covered by the charred roof in the meantime. “It’s a Steinway, but it’s in rough shape. It’s basically been in outdoor storage for months. But I think it’s probably worth restoring, and would be a good project for you.”
A few weeks later, I accompanied Loren to the scene of the fire to appraise the piano. Donned in headlamps, we scrubbed soot off various spots to see the extent of the damage and how difficult it would be to fix. Loren deemed it worth repairing and said that it would be a good project to take on if I wanted to learn how to restore pianos, as nearly everything needed to be redone.
The owner agreed on a price, and I scheduled my technician/mover friend David Nettleton to move it on December 10th, 2018. When December 10th arrived, my Mom and I talked to the owner for a bit while David packed up the piano. I usually don’t talk about my story, but my Mom began sharing with the owner how I came to be a piano technician and what I wanted to do with the piano. In many ways, I identify with this piano. Through fire and saltwater, trials and tears, something beautiful can rise from the ashes. I want to be part of that–to restore the piano’s song– and use it to record my first album. He loved the story and message of what we wanted to do and decided to give us the piano for free. Thanks to him, I was able to finish the project much faster with the extra funds, though it still took four years to complete.
I have kept in touch with the owner and his family, and they have since moved into their new home built on the same property.
Creating for life.
Jordan began apprenticing as a piano tuner with Loren Kelley in 2017 and as a piano technician with Phil Glenn in 2018 after acquiring a 1925 Steinway Model L that had been in a house fire and subsequently doused with salt water from a Puget Sound fire barge. From that time until 2023, Jordan worked with Ed McMorrow to restore the piano with new strings, bridges, pin block, custom-fitted WNG carbon fiber action, and Ed’s LightHammer Tone Regulation. The lid, still charred from the fire, remains to be finished.
Jordan is currently restoring a Steinway World War II Victory Vertical under Ed McMorrow’s mentorship. Thanks to Dan Skelley, a second Victory Vertical project, the Piano of An Unknown Soldier, awaits in queue.
Watercolor Artist
Jordan is an internationally known gouache watercolor artist who has been painting since she was two years old. A prodigy in art, her work has been featured on television, radio, and in American Girl Magazine. Her work is hanging in the Children’s Holocaust Museum at Terezin in the Czech Republic, Prague, and has been shown at the Matterhorn in Switzerland, in Israel, Morocco, Africa, China, at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv, Ukraine, and across Europe. Locally, at age nine, she had a joint gallery showing with the late Fred Oldfield at the Western Heritage Museum Art Gallery in Puyallup, WA, and was interviewed at age eight by KMPS radio personality Ichabod Caine and the Waking Crew. At age 12, she participated in a concert of the late classical pianist Kim Clement at King David’s Tower in Israel, and at age 17, taught a workshop on The Art of Creativity at a conference held at the vacation home of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Currently, Jordan makes her own paint from foraged minerals, lichens, clays, and plants.
Musician
Currently, Jordan makes her own paint from foraged minerals, lichens, clays, and plants.
Re-creation and restoration are my favorite ways to create. Something new rarely has the depth of something “re-newed,” and I am grateful that I get to work where history and technology meet. There, the greats of yesterday and tomorrow blend and integrate, bringing the future into the present. – Jordan
What is Arukah?
Arukah (אֲרוּכָה) means restoration in Hebrew but conveys more than the English idea of making something like it once was. It means restoring something to better-than-original condition. The full definition is restoring to soundness; wholeness (literally or figuratively); health, or perfection.
The mission of Arukah Piano is to restore sound to the piano’s fullest capability while retaining its legacy.
What is the logo 𐤀?
What appears to be a sideways “A” is actually an aleph, the first letter of the ancient Paleo-Hebrew/Proto-Canaanite/Phoenician alphabet. It is a natural choice for our logo because it is the first letter in the word Arukah, and it resembles the shape of a grand piano action whippen. The whippen is the main part of the action, responsible for transmitting motion from the piano keys to the hammers, allowing them to strike the strings. They are one of the main factors in providing dynamic control. Like the whippen, the aleph is a silent letter that helps make sound when combined with other letters. As the first letter of the alphabet, it means beginning. Arukah Piano brings new beginnings to pianos by restoring sound.
