Belle Camp Blog

Thousands of visitors have passed through the Bellingrath Living Room over the years, paying little attention to what was surely the most expensive object in the house: a Capehart radio-phonograph.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Capehart Automatic Phonograph Company produced a series of very expensive entertainment systems housed in handsome cabinets. The company offered a variety of styles, ranging from Chippendale to “Spanish.”

The company was named after Homer E. Capehart, who introduced the concept of home entertainment systems consisting of combination record players and AM/FM radios. Capehart had earlier perfected a series of jukeboxes before incorporating under the Capehart name in 1928. He would eventually have a distinguished career as a senator from Indiana.

The Capehart was unique in that it contained an ingenious record changer capable of playing both sides of a record by flipping it over. By the 1940s, the Capehart had become a symbol of urbane luxury in the United States, and movie buffs can spot them in the glamorous living rooms featured in films of the era.

The Chippendale model in the Bellingrath Home retailed for the astronomical sum of $5,000 in 1941 (about $87,000 in today’s dollars). The cabinet itself weighs 140 pounds and features a “clam shell” opening top that reveals the record changer. An interior light originally illuminated the changer when the top was opened.

Below the top section is a pair of doors that open to reveal a speaker, centered with what resembles a Chippendale chair splat. At its base, the words “Bissell Weisert Co., Chicago” are printed in gold, referring to a retailer that once operated on Michigan Avenue in that city.

Production of Capehart radio-phonographs came to a halt by 1950 as the company turned its attention to a new form of entertainment: television. The long-playing record, which spun at a speed of 33 1/3 rpm, was introduced during that decade. Within a few years, Americans began preferring more portable “hi-fi” systems, rendering the Capeharts obsolete.