A Passion For Pianos

My love of pianos began in high school in the late 1980s while at a friend’s home where there was a spinet piano. Not having a piano at my own home in Massachusetts, I would press the keys and listen to the tones created by this magical box. When I began college in New York City, my roommate’s family had a Steinway upright piano, and since they lived just south of the university, I frequently got to experiment on this beautiful piano during my visits. However, it was not until my senior year at college that my parents gave me a 61-key synthesizer as a present. I struggled joyously for months trying to learn the beginning of Fur Elise.

After graduating from Columbia in the early 1990s, I bought a digital piano for my apartment after starting my first job. Unhappy with the electronic tone and feel of the digital piano, I quickly upgraded to a small Petrof upright piano. One day, I went looking for a CD in Tower Records to find a musician who played piano and sang interesting music, and stumbled across a Michael Feinstein CD called Pure Gershwin. I listened to that CD for hours at a time, loving the blending of piano and vocals, and being introduced for the first time to the American standards.

Inspired by the CD, I enrolled in the Turtle Bay Music Academy for lessons with a local Jazz instructor, who taught me to play simple jazz chord progressions. Unfortunately after 6 months, the instructor was let go from the academy, but since the school was so close to my work, I bought “practice room” cards so that I could go to the academy during my lunch hour to play the magnificent, if incredibly beat up, Steinway B grand pianos from the 1920s in the practice rooms. It was there I developed my love and fascination for Steinway grand pianos, vowing one day to own one.

During the 1990s, I traded up from my small upright to finally get my first grand piano, a 100 year old unrestored Sohmer grand piano from a church in Brooklyn that cost me $100. I found a great technician to make the piano playable in my apartment, and I enjoyed that piano for a few years. That experience taught me the value of using a highly experienced piano technician. After moving to a home in Astoria, I decided it was time to get a modern grand piano. I found an affordable Kawai KG-2D grand piano and loved every minute of having that piano.

In 2003, I decided to head to warmer weather and settled on Tampa, FL, and brought my beloved Kawai KG-2D with me from NYC. Unfortunately, as this Kawai was damaged in transit, I began shopping for my next piano. Seeing an ad for a 1960’s Kawai 7’ grand piano, I stopped in at this piano dealer in St Pete to see if I could finally afford a 7’ grand piano. Walking into that industrial warehouse was like walking into a dream for me. This dealer had rows and rows of older Steinway grand pianos for sale, but not in great condition. Enthralled, I wandered the rows, dreaming and thinking. The dealer told me that he had started the business from his own home and grew from there. Although the 1960’s Kawai was in very poor shape, he did have a used Kawai RX-6 7’ grand piano he had on consignment that I could afford to purchase.

After that visit, I envisioned owning a showroom full of magnificent Steinway grand pianos, musically exceptional and visually striking, and decided to make that my retirement dream. On my limited means and working a full time job in the health insurance industry, I slowly began selectively purchasing unloved pianos, and finding new loving homes for them. My degrees, which include a BA in economics from Columbia and an MBA in finance and accounting from NYU, armed me with some good knowledge on how to set up a small business. Knowing that 90% of small businesses close or fall into bankruptcy, I determined that I would be minimally leveraged, if at all, and I would have to grow my retirement dream slowly and steadily. Fortunately, time was on my side.

By 2008, after finding several new loving homes for unloved pianos, I had determined the exploratory business phase was over and my passion had grown, and I set up Picarzo, LLC officially with the state of Florida. I continued to carefully select a few pianos a year to find new homes for, but also began locally restoring magnificent old Steinway uprights from the 1890s through 1910s and offering them for sale. During this introductory phase of the business, I began to learn the intricacies of a piano and all its parts, and I absorbed knowledge like a sponge of how pianos worked. Most importantly, I learned the gazillion things that could be wrong with any given piano, and began developing my idea on how pianos should be properly restored.

Over those introductory years of my business, I tried many piano restorers in the US and abroad and was never completely happy with the results. Almost all piano restorers are very good at certain parts of restoration, but lacking in other significant areas. I envisioned restored pianos that were indistinguishable from new pianos in appearance, touch, and tone. I continued my far-reaching search for a restoration company that created the restored pianos that I envisioned – musically exceptional and visually striking.

Finally, in 2013, I was visiting with the dealer where I purchased the Kawai RX-6 in St Pete. This dealer had moved into more showroom-like quarters and had twice as many pianos as before. As I roamed the showroom, I, with my standards greatly increased over the years, was not enthralled with any of the pianos in his inventory, either with how they looked or how they played. However, the dealer had a Steinway M that he had just received back from Europe and that piano was breathtaking in appearance. One of the most beautiful Steinway grand pianos I had seen. Unfortunately the M played poorly because the dealer had not sent the action to Europe – only the piano shell.

After due diligence and much research, I decided to begin using this European company, which has been restoring pianos since the 1980s. I gave them my many demands for piano restoration, including new soundboards, new bridges, new pinblocks, new agraffes, new strings, new hammer actions, new damper actions, the finest keytops, etc. I was shocked by how expensive this type of restoration was, but realized if I was going to do my dream restorations, I was going to do them correctly, according to my vision of creating musically exceptional and visually striking pianos.

As I started working with this company, one piano at a time, I realized they did very good work, and although far superior to any piano restorations I had tried before, their restorations were still not up to the level of my vision for what I needed in my piano restorations. Over time, I found this company to be receptive to my many ideas for restoration improvements on my particular pianos, and my pianos got closer and closer to my vision. However, I still, to this day, need to have my master technician here in Tampa go through each restored piano thoroughly to make all the final adjustments to these very complicated instruments. This final process for each piano usually takes my master technician 2 to 3 full days to optimize each piano by minutely regulating the keyboard, hammer action, damper action, pedal system, and tone. Only then am I satisfied with the restoration and ready to offer the piano for sale through Picarzo Pianos.

Knowing that not everyone locally could afford one of my restored pianos, I searched for an option for my local clients who needed an affordable, well-playing piano. All the piano manufacturer options in this affordable price range have pianos made in China or Indonesia, including Yamaha, Kawai, Samick, Young Chang, Hailun and Pearl River. And since my definition of affordable is a baby grand piano for under $10K, none of these companies offered a new grand piano in the US for anywhere near $10K – most were well over $15K. So I decided to partner with a company in China to produce my Picarzo brand of grand piano for under $10K. The pianos arrive as expected, and I put my master technician to work on each one. After spending 3 to 4 full days on each piano, my piano technician has these pianos performing very well, and I can offer these baby grand pianos for sale to my local clients for less than $10,000.

For the future, there are several other items I would like to accomplish with my small business, but unfortunately I will need more showroom space to do them. Someday I will have the funds to purchase a bigger showroom to be able to offer even more musically exceptional and visually appealing pianos, to have teaching areas for students to learn how to play, to offer hosting recitals in the showroom to local piano teachers, and perhaps even to offer small piano concerts/events to the general public.

Finally, an unexpected side effect of my small business is the amazing people I have met through my passion for offering exceptional pianos for sale. My clients include performing artists, physicians, attorneys, consultants, business and industry leaders, Julliard graduates, philanthropists, religious leaders, and even a Tony-award winning Broadway producer. It has been very exciting and personally rewarding to get to know all these piano lovers, and to help them find their dream pianos.

Thank you for visiting Picarzo Pianos virtually, and if I may be of any service to you, please contact me by phone, email or text. I will be very happy to assist you with your piano needs.