Imagine an FBI agent dispatched from Washington DC headed north on a reconnaissance mission ending up right here in Easton Connecticut. As intriguing an opening as this may sound, you might be asking yourself, “Really? Easton?” As it turns out, there was a factory in our quiet little town producing top secret equipment for the US Armed Forces. And since the country was in the midst of World War II, it was required by all companies working on classified equipment to have armed guards. In this instance, Mirko Paneyko, the owner of the MP Engineering Company, refused. He argued that such a presence would only attract unwanted attention. So, the concerned FBI promptly sent an agent to investigate and return with a firsthand report.
Arriving by train in Bridgeport in the early morning, the G-man located the company in the city’s telephone directory, but he had no luck getting directions to its site. No one seemed to know about it and if they did, they weren’t sharing. Heading towards the company’s mailing address in Fairfield, the agent was on the trail to Easton by the afternoon. He walked for hours along our town roads until finally, he arrived at the shop at 5:30 in the evening. Completely exhausted from a full day’s search, the tired officer concluded that the company was in no danger of being discovered by the enemy.
This story was told many times in interviews by Mirko Paneyko as he reflected on the early days of his factory in Easton and the many twists and turns of his life that led him to call this small town home. Born Miroslav Paneyko on February 14, 1908, in what is now Lviv, Ukraine, his early years were a mixture of privilege and loss as his family was torn between the shifting borders of their homeland during the First World War. His father, Vasyl Paneyko was a prominent professor, journalist and diplomat who worked for Ukrainian independence. But while he was representing his country’s interests in Versailles and Geneva, his homeland became a battleground. By 1919, Mirko, then only 11 years old, made the brave decision to set out across the war-torn borders. With the help of an American correspondent and a fake passport, he was able to escape in a German combat train. As shells burst all around, Mirko escaped safely to Vienna. He continued on to Switzerland where he was enrolled as a student at the Institut Le Rosey, one of the most prestigious private schools in Europe to this day.
Afterwards, he attended the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris and then the Sorbonne where he received baccalaureates in philosophy and science all by the age of 15. A gifted draughtsman, he was known from a very young age for his skilled drawings, and he was a trained pianist whose first love was classical music. Along with his artistic bend, Mirko was a tinkerer and young scientist. He built crystal radio receivers and audio amplifiers as a hobby.
By the fall of 1926, Mirko was sponsored by the prominent Harvard historian Samuel Morrison Elliot to study in the United States. Enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he pursued a degree in electrical engineering, but his life was financially challenging. To pay his way through school he worked as a waiter, a tutor and a translator since he was fluent in German, French, Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Though it seems hard to imagine that he had any free time, he also managed to build phonographs. They produced such perfect sound that there was an immediate interest and demand. This inspired him to go into business producing audio equipment in his small loft. Constructing one phonograph at a time, he worked in a rather sparse setting with little food or comfort. However, by night his shop was transformed into one of the most notable hot spots in town where Boston’s elite along with musicians and conductors gathered to hear recorded music with unprecedented realism. Paneyko achieved his sound quality through a floating turntable and a wide range of tuner-controllers to adjust the upper, middle and lower frequencies. And while he admitted that he didn’t invent anything new in these early systems, he acknowledged that his machines were the product of his meticulous approach to detail. He used the highest quality parts he could afford, and he positioned all the interior components for optimal performance. He branded his products with a logo composed of his initials, uniquely in Cyrillic font as МП. Years later, he would update it to MP.
By 1933, his early business success led him to New York City where he and his wife Lenore moved into a duplex on East 31st Street. Here, he continued to grow his audio clientele through evenings filled with musical entertainment and the quality of his players drew praise from such luminaries as Stokowski and Mendel. As a result, Mirko cultivated a wealthy client base for his “high fidelity” products. In fact, an audio sound system designed, assembled, and installed by him would cost between 3 to 6,000 dollars. For some perspective on his price range: today that would be the equivalent of spending as much as 141,000 dollars on your home entertainment system! One famous MP installation in particular at the Curtis Bok House in Pennsylvania cost 12,000 dollars (today, more than 270,000) and took two years to complete. His affluent customers earned him a reputation as the sound architect for millionaires and his business was built up purely by word of mouth and personal recommendations.
With a growing family and business, Mirko relocated his shop to Easton in 1934 and the choice of location may have been influenced by his friend and partner William J. Pollitt, who incidentally, would later serve as first selectman of Easton from 1965 to 1969. Both men had studied engineering and met while briefly working for Sikorsky in Stratford in their early student days. Living in Bridgeport, Pollitt was also a musician, and they shared a common interest in audio equipment. They worked on projects in the basement of Pollitt’s Bridgeport family home. They set up a make-shift factory but as the business grew, the two men ended up moving their workshop onto a property on Wilson Road in Easton that had a small house and barn. It is interesting to note that this land was owned by the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company and it was purchased from the Ogden family in 1910-11. As it turns out, Pollitt’s father, William C. Pollitt was a civil engineer for the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company and he may have been instrumental in granting them access and use.
Together William Pollitt jr. and Mirko Paneyko went straight to work clearing the late nineteenth century barn of hay and farm tools and they set up their shop. Mirko would commute to this site from his home in NYC for several years and his family would spend summers and weekends in the house located next to the barn. In 1939, the Paneykos moved to this Easton property full-time just at the start of World War II.
In their own way, both Pollitt and Paneyko would go on to serve the US during the war years. Pollitt enlisted and became a radar specialist whose expertise had him traveling all over the world installing long range radar controls. Mirko stayed on at the factory where he built an office and a laboratory on the first floor of the barn and as the war progressed, he added on to the structure with additional wings. He was careful however to maintain the barn’s outward appearance that disguised its inner workings. Carpentry work for audio cabinets took place in the basement and electrical assembly on the first floor. An industrial-sized dumb waiter carried heavy chassis of components down to the wood shop and then onto the loading docks for delivery. This efficient layout and Mirko’s proximity to his work would prove essential as his company was commissioned with producing a large volume of radar and communication devices for the military. This is reflected in the sharp increase in employees from 20 workers to as many as 100. At one point Mirko even expanded his production to include a satellite carpentry shop that is now a residence at 387 Center Road.
Most of the company’s employees were from Bridgeport and the Fairfield region, but many were from Easton. He hired several skilled immigrants from Hungary, Poland and Italy and he prided himself on having a welcoming and supportive family atmosphere in his shop. A number of his workers stayed on long term and some would put in a full day working in Bridgeport factories before returning to Easton to clock-in at the Paneyko barn for an evening shift. The incredible endurance of his staff is a testament to their loyalty; both to his company and to our country in support of the war efforts.
Outside his government contracts, Mirko’s business thrived as universities and art centers commissioned concert installations. His systems were installed from Maine right down to Florida and across the country.
MP speakers could be found at Connecticut College, his audio players at Wesleyan and his radio phonographs at Columbia- just to name a few. Libraries ordered audio tables with headphones for their reading rooms, dance studios commissioned sound systems and symphony halls installed MP playback equipment. Mirko also expanded his offerings to include record and film production, particularly as musicians called on him to supervise their concert recordings. Some of the Paneyko divisions included: MP Engineering, MP Concert Installations, MP Recording, MP Laboratory and MP Productions.
By the end of the war, both Mirko’s business and his family were well established and active in the local Easton community. His wife Lenore, a graduate of Smith College, was a bright and energetic woman who volunteered for the League of Women Voters, the PTA and the Congregational Church.
Mirko also joined several civic organizations including the Easton Exchange Club and the Swim Association. Active in fundraising causes, he also donated audio equipment to the town schools, the library and churches as well as volunteering as a special instructor in the local schools teaching students about electricity. Perhaps in recognition of his wartime industry or as an encouragement for him to remain in Easton, Sam Senior, president of the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company gave the 3-acre Wilson Road property along with the house and barn to Mirko for the sum of one dollar on December 4th, 1945.
Property ownership encouraged Mirko to further invest in his factory and he had the second floor of the barn converted into a massive entertainment venue with finished walls and sound proofing. Furnishings included couches, seating for small concerts and a Steinway grand piano. The best of his audio equipment along with cutting edge film projectors were installed with monumental speakers that were said to weigh over 800 pounds. Conductors from around the world visited him here including Toscanini, Koussevitzky and Fiedler and they were charmed by the setting and sound. The great Toscanini was apparently so moved in this space that he began to conduct as though the recorded orchestra was a live performance.
Outside the barn, Mirko mounted more giant speakers so that he could listen to classical music as he lounged on his back deck. And to make it all the more luxurious, he had a wired remote control that spanned the 200 ft. distance between the barn and his house. It wasn’t long before he noticed neighbors setting up chairs along the road. They apparently also wanted to enjoy listening to his private collection of philharmonic recordings. Sharing these symphonies with others brought him great joy and he began to invite townspeople onto the property for regular “concerts.” One local was quoted as saying: “It’s really as though Toscanini were here in the garden behind the barn and not a record playing.”
Despite all of his success, the post-war period brought many challenges for Mirko. For starters, business began to lag and some of his institutional clients were taking a very long time to remit payments. With revenue down and increased tax obligations, he tried to expand his product line to include television sets from 1948 to 1952. Even though his company was the only manufacturer of televisions in our state, the project incurred significant financial losses and he was unable to turn a profit.
Never needing to advertise previously, MP promotions do start in the 1950’s along with interviews highlighting his affordable new line of audio systems. The man who once provided music for millionaires realized that he would have to expand his production to include more modestly priced equipment for “the proletariat” in order to stay in business.
Complicating his company’s financial issues was the fact that he really loved living large. Improvements to the property around the house and barn included extensive landscaping with retaining walls that featured built-in water fountains. In 1946, he commissioned the very first Har-Tru tennis court to be installed at a private residence. Fill from hundreds of trucks leveled the ground for its installation which also included an in-ground swimming pool for his two young sons. Of course, this was done well before environmental conservation would have prohibited this kind of development on the edge of reservoir lands.
Along with a professionally installed court, Mirko hired the Mexican American tennis pro “Pancho” Gonzales to stay on site and serve as the family’s private coach. Adding to his already extensive company payroll, Mirko also pilfered the head chef from Le Chambord restaurant in NYC. Moving into a small outbuilding on the grounds, Albert prepared meals for the family and their guests while the chef’s wife, Bernadette saw to the groundskeeping. It was apparently not at all uncommon to have rather elaborate dinners served a la flambé at the Paneyko residence. At any given point, one could find glamorous celebrities like Zsa Zsa Gabor with her poodles or such distinguished Connecticut residents as Henry and Clare Luce from Ridgefield or the Rudkins of Fairfield’s Pepperidge Farm.
Considering his expenses, it wasn’t long before the cost of maintaining his lifestyle and business proved too much. By 1956, his estate was in foreclosure. His factory and all of its contents would have been lost if not for Lenore’s brother, Wheaton Lane, who stepped in and rescued them financially. And while this assistance kept their home and the business running, many of the luxuries Mirko had acquired, like his 30-foot boat the “Decibel,” was confiscated for unpaid repair work and back-taxes.
By 1962 his business significantly contracted as competitors offered “high fidelity” players at lower prices. In response, he began to include new technologies into his product line such as audio tape players, but he did not have the capital to increase production or invest in factory upgrades. Complicating matters, his wife Lenore, who had been an integral part of the MP business, left him for indiscretions.
Price lists and time logs from the late 1970’s show that his company was still producing headsets, along with record and tape players but he had few employees and much of the work seems to have focused on repairs. Mirko remained active in local civic organizations but by the 1980’s he fell ill. Passing away in 1986 after a lengthy battle with stomach cancer, his remains were cremated and his factory was abandoned pretty much just as he had left it. His Easton property was bought in 1989 by Syvester “Buster” Cocivi, a farmer in Stratfield who used the barn to store his equipment, ironically, bringing the site full circle once again to its agricultural roots. Though Buster left a great deal of the factory intact, Mirko and his company were all but forgotten. Few in town today remember anything about him or his shop, and perhaps that really does prove Mirko’s assertion long ago to the FBI that he and his workshop were always perfectly hidden in plain sight.
It has taken more than two years to piece together some parts of Mirko Paneyko’s story and I am grateful to his son Stephen for sharing his memories. Also special thanks to Andrew and Fiorella Crape for granting the Historical Society access to the buildings and remaining documents. These resources will help us further understand his fascinating story as part of our town’s history. Like all of us, Mirko was not perfect, but one constant you do sense is his appreciation for all that he could achieve in the United States and his love of this small town. He saw Easton as the epitome of the American dream, and I think he would be incredibly touched to know that residents here are supporting his Ukrainian homeland that once again is torn apart by warfare. https://www.ukraineaidinternational.org/easton-and-sviatohirsk#:~:text=In%20March%202023%2C%20a%20new,and%20Sviatohirsk%2C%20Donetsk%2C%20Ukraine.
Mirko was also particularly proud of his contributions to the Allied victory during World War II and I hope my research will help place his company in the greater context of our state’s industrial history. If you would like to learn more about Connecticut’s manufacturing during the war years, please join us on March 16th as we welcome Sharon Cohen who will be speaking about her recently published book, Connecticut Industries Unite for WWII Victory. This event is free to the public and co-hosted by the Easton Public Library and the Historical Society. For more information and registration, please visit the following link: https://www.eventkeeper.com/mars/xpages/xp_newpopevent.cfm?zeeOrg=EASTONPL&EventID=7479829&sw=1920
