William Dowd, at 86; built harpsichords
William Dowd always remembered the first moment he pressed the keys of an old harpsichord while he was studying at Harvard after World War II. The music rose into the room.
"I was thrilled by it," he told the Christian Science Monitor in 1981.
Less thrilling, however, were newer models made in the 1940s with designs that mirrored the piano in ways that altered the harpsichord's delicate plucked sound.
"It was simply the difference between good and bad," Mr. Dowd told the Globe in 1982. "The classic instruments were simpler; the sound they made was more beautiful, more expressive."
Beginning with his then-partner in 1949, Mr. Dowd launched a new era of harpsichord-making in the United States and over the next four decades built more than 800 instruments that are now played in 26 countries.
Mr. Dowd, who at different times kept shops in Boston, Cambridge, and Paris, died Nov. 25 at Inova Cameron Glen Care Center in Reston, Va., of complications from an embolism he suffered earlier this year. He was 86 and lived in Reston.
"I can't take credit for being a genius, just an opportunist," Mr. Dowd said in the 1981 interview with the Christian Science Monitor. "It was a case of being in the right place at the right time."
Still, hundreds of customers saw brilliance in the way he borrowed from historic designs of harpsichords and conjured new instruments.
The elegance and exactitude of his craft was rooted in hours of study, dating back to his years as a Harvard student when he would visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York City to determine, from the distance of a few inches, how to construct an instrument.
"He would measure harpsichords at the museum through the glass," said his wife, Pegram Epes Dowd of Reston.
In 1949, Mr. Dowd and Frank Hubbard opened a shop above an Armenian restaurant on Tremont Street. They had known each other since sailing together as boys.
"We managed to scrape together enough money to buy a circular saw, band saw, drill press, two benches, and a surplus army coal stove which devoured endless quantities of fuel without producing any noticeable heat," Hubbard said in a 1973 talk at the University of Indiana that is reprinted on his company's website.
"Cold winter mornings we huddled around that stove until 11 before we could find courage to venture into the corners of the room," Hubbard said of the early days. "Even so, we did manage to lay down four harpsichords which were epoch making in the simple fact that we were attempting to follow old models."
Hubbard & Dowd produced 25 harpsichords over the next decade, then the two opened separate shops. Hubbard, who later wrote the book "Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making" on the history of the instrument, died in 1976.
Their harpsichords, meanwhile, had drawn an appreciative audience among musicians who found the Hubbard & Dowd instruments superior to the versions other companies made from designs that owed more to piano technology.
"Right away the younger players came in our side," Mr. Dowd told the Globe in 1982.
William Richmond Dowd was born in Newark. His mother played piano and his father was a patent lawyer and violist. He grew up in Upper Montclair, N.J., and Westchester County, N.Y., where he learned to sail and first met Hubbard, who was two years older.
The childhood friends both went to Harvard and their studies were interrupted by World War II. Mr. Dowd was in the Coast Guard, stationed in the Atlantic off Long Island, then was commissioned a lieutenant and served aboard destroyers in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Returning to Harvard, he graduated in 1948 with a bachelor's in English literature, but "he loved music," his wife said. "When he went to Harvard, he started out in the music department and wanted to be a pianist, a performer. I guess his father said, 'Don't confuse enthusiasm for a huge talent,' so he decided to find another way."
Careers teaching English loomed after graduation, but Hubbard and Mr. Dowd chose to serve as apprentices to different instrument makers, then went into business together.
"They just had this zeal for the harpsichord and were real risk takers," Mr. Dowd's wife said. "To avoid teaching English for the rest of their lives they just decided to go for it. Bill didn't care about money. He borrowed $1,000 from his father and made a go of it, even if sometimes he had to sell his own harpsichord to make payroll."
Through the next four decades, Mr. Dowd's shops with Hubbard and on his own were in a variety of neighborhoods. When Hubbard & Dowd dissolved, Mr. Dowd rented space on Church Street in Cambridge, off Harvard Square. In 1962, he moved the operation to Thorndike Street in East Cambridge, and relocated again in 1984 to South Boston. For about 13 years, beginning in the early 1970s, he also had a shop in Paris.
"He was immensely inspiring," said Priscilla Fitch of Salem, who worked in Mr. Dowd's shops for more than 14 years and praised him for setting high standards, while still giving employees room to learn.
Mr. Dowd, she said, would teach his workers aspects of making a harpsichord and then "he let you do it. He didn't hover, he didn't criticize. He was very generous in many ways."
Pegram Epes met Mr. Dowd when she was buying a harpsichord and they married in 1980.
They moved to Reston seven years ago, and had been in that area since the late 1980s, when he closed his South Boston shop.
Mr. Dowd's marriages to Viola Johnson and Martha Farrar ended in divorce.
"He loved his clients and went to their concerts," his wife said. "But every instrument he made had to be perfect, It didn't matter if you were an amateur or a professional, every harpsichord was made with the same care."
In addition to his wife, Mr. Dowd leaves three children from his marriage to Farrar, Emily Dowd Tronstad of Westport, Amanda of Cipieres, France, and William of Seattle; and two granddaughters.
A service will be announced. 