D. Scot Williams, left, and Reggie Hulsey, both parishioners and choir members at S. James Episcopal Church, designed and built the 300-pipe organ mounted above the passageway behind them. Williams makes his living as a cabinetmaker and Hulsey builds pipe organs.

D. Scot Williams has been a full-time cabinetmaker for 25 years, but he could not tell you the first thing about making a pipe organ.

Reggie Hulsey has been building pipe organs since 1979, but said he is equally clueless about cabinetry.

Yet both men, who are parishioners at St. James Episcopal Church, in North Knoxville, pooled their talents to build a 300-pipe organ to accompany the main organ that Williams' wife, Nancy Wells, plays in the sanctuary each Sunday.

"When she registers both of them to play the same thing, you can't tell where the music is coming from. The whole room sounds like a speaker," Williams said.

"Our basement has two sections," Wells said. "And Reggie would be in one section working on the pipes and electronics and Scot would be in the other one sawing wood and trying to keep the door closed so dust wouldn't get in the pipes," Wells said.

They started the project in the fall, but the idea for the secondary organ dates to 1985, when the main organ was installed. The church had wanted to eventually add an antiphonal, or accompanying organ, and it set up the console of the main organ so one day it could take one. The time arrived last year, when Joe Ballard, priest of the church, announced a stewardship campaign.

"Time, Talent and Treasure was the name of it," Hulsey said.

With his experience building organs, he decided to head a project to finally produce an antiphonal organ. "I identified the project and then we rounded up a donor," Hulsey said.

"If you contracted to have this done, I would estimate it would cost about $125,000," Hulsey said. "We did it for considerably less that that, because we donated a great deal of the time and effort."

Williams and Hulsey teamed with Burton Tidwell, a longtime organ-building associate of Hulsey's from Marion, Kansas, on the project. Williams and Hulsey designed and built the organ, with Tidwell serving as consultant and as "voicer," for the organ.

"That means that he determines exactly the specifications of the pipes and then comes here to make them have their proper sound," Hulsey said.

Tidwell did that by cutting the pipes to precise lengths after Hulsey had cut them to an approximation of the length.

As Williams hammered and sawed, Hulsey worked quietly.

"I would her Reggie blow a pipe occasionally and it would sound like some kid's tin whistle," Wells said.

By mid-May, they had the organ essentially done, but had to wait until Tidwell's schedule could permit him to visit Knoxville and voice the organ. It was installed in the church's narthex July 10 and played for the first time during services July 23.

Nancy Wells, D.Scot Williams’ wife, demonstrates the 300-pipe organ, which is an addition to the church’s 1,000-pipe main organ. Wells is organist and choir director at S. James Episcopal.

This was a moment of nervous tension as well as excitement, because no one knew how the organ would actually sound, Williams and Hulsey said. Individual pipes were tested, but there was no way to play music until the organ was hooked to the main console.

"We actually wondered whether it was going to work or not," Williams said.

As the congregation faced her, Wells began playing the church's primary organ, which has about 1,000 pipes. Then she added the antiphonal organ and 300 more pipes from the narthex answered the main instrument, sending music across the congregation from behind and causing heads to turn.

Then, Wells adjusted the register on both organs so their sounds blended. It was stunning now to see and hear the instrument they had built in his basement, Williams said.

"To go from the drawing we had in the shop to the day we stood in here and listened to it play; it almost brings you to tears," he said.