Creating a New Niche from the Past
And, he believes both men are well-suited to continuing in historic stone restoration.
“We love historic restoration, mainly because we’re good at it,” Labe Kopelov says. “We want to work with quality minded restoration contractors and architects from around the country, ones who want to collaborate with a stonecutter who monitors every detail of the fabrication process.”
Kopelov says he’s also looking for people who understand there’s a cost to such quality. He prefers to bid jobs where the specs are crystal clear, and they don’t bid on a cubic-foot or square-foot price with allowances that could lower the quality to match the so-called going price.
“Normally, we’ll negotiate a project once we’ve offered estimated unit prices for selected stone elements,” Kopelov concludes. “We’ll also support doing a project in phases to match the budget instead of lowering the quality in order to do the whole project at one time.
“I truly feel that historic restoration is about relationships and creating a team with an architect, engineer, contractor, fabricator/supplier and installer who are all working toward the same goal: a quality finished project.”