In 1968, a three-bank Aeolian pipe organ was donated to Hofstra by John T. Ricks and Jane Ricks King, in the name of their late parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Ricks. The organ was originally located in the former Ricks estate in Flower Hill, New York. Jesse Ricks was the former president and chairman of Union Carbide, and Mrs. Ricks was a volunteer church organist who often held organ performances at the estate for friends on Sundays. The organ was scheduled to be installed in the Hofstra Playhouse the following fall, and enabled organ music majors at Hofstra to practice on-campus - as opposed to at the nearby Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation.