One morning earlier this week, Thomas Lupo, the president and CEO of the American Wood Column Corporation, was in his office regaling two young entrepreneurs with tales of his 110-year-old family business. They had just learned that Lupo’s company was about to close, and they’d come to East Williamsburg to learn about his nearly extinct craft: making ornamental decoration from compo — a mixture of sawdust, glue and whiting. Lupo seemed a little surprised at their interest. “No one wanted me, and now they love me,” said the 72-year-old. “I should go out of business more often!”

Those in need of a 12-foot Corinthian pillar, elaborate crown moldings, or a rococo ceiling medallion should place their orders ASAP. Lupo believes his business is one the few compo-ornamentation outfits still operating in the United States. “And we’re the only one in New York. There’s not much demand for it because people don’t know what to do with it,” said Lupo. But it isn’t necessarily a slowdown in the industry that’s nudging him to shut down. After 51 years in the business, he and his aging crew are thinking it’s time to retire.

The American Wood Column Corporation warehouse on Grand Street.
Photo: Anne Kadet

Lupo gave his guests a tour of his company’s two-story brick warehouse on an industrial section of Grand Street. His grandfather, a jeweler from Italy, acquired the building and the business in 1916. “The rumor was someone owed him money and couldn’t pay him, but this guy had the ornamental business. So my grandfather went and partnered with him, or bought it from him, or took it from him — and that’s how he started,” said Lupo.

The business looks, and operates, much as it did in the early days. The tour started in the second-floor showroom, where interior decorators, set designers, and architects choose from hundreds of display panels and a dusty jumble of pillars, pedestals, railings, and statuary. Much of the time, Lupo said, he has no idea what the project is for. A set of pillars might be destined for a Long Island mansion or a North Carolina plantation. A pedestal might be used in a restaurant or a store’s window display. He can state with certainty, however, that he and his crew of four performed the elaborate restoration work for Kings Theater in Brooklyn and carved the saddle mounts used for clothing displays at Ralph Lauren shops across the country. They created the iconic Saturday Night Live clock seen at the top of the show and the staircase banister in The Exorcist. Don Corleone’s grave marker in The Godfather? That’s his work too. “It’s actually wood,” he said.

Lupo displays a mold in the compo room.
Photo: Anne Kadet

The tour continued to the compo room, which houses a library of more than 9,000 ornamental casts, some dating back to the 1800s. Hand-labeled by number, they are stored like books, floor-to-ceiling, on shelves commanding three sides of the room. Here, craftsmen mix the compo and pour it into molds. When they dry, the ornaments — scrolls, rosettes, medallions, nosegays, feathers, curlicues — can be pressed onto surfaces like walls and ceilings, even furniture.

But a few things have changed. For one, it’s getting harder to source the ingredients needed for compo, especially hide glue, an adhesive made by boiling the collagen from animal skins, bones, and tendons. “I’m probably one of the few people in New York who needs hide glue,” said Lupo, opening an ancient wood bin that holds three grades of the powdered adhesive. “When I do it now, it’s like a boutique thing. ‘Oh, you want hide glue? We could get you a five-pound bag for $85.’ I used to pay $40 for a 50-pound bag, you know? Well, it’s just the way it is.”

Craftsman Louis Robles at the lathe.
Photo: Anne Kadet

Downstairs is the woodworking shop, which accounts for 90 percent of sales. Back in the day, when New York was crowded with manufacturers, the company churned out thousands of stands for nearby lamp factories, piano legs for Steinway, and furniture parts. During World War II, when metal was scarce, the company produced thousands of wood flare bombs used to light battlefield skies. But now, many of the orders are for movie sets and television shows like The Gilded Age, said Lupo, along with oddball projects like the 30-foot Tinker Toy replica he built for a Burning Man event and a wooden cake for Bob Hope’s 75th birthday.

Lupo’s father, Vincent Lupo, with a giant wood phone created for an an AT&T president’s retirement party.
Photo: Courtesy of Thomas Lupo

It might be surprising to hear that the bulk of his orders aren’t coming from townhouse buyers on a renovation spree. Even among the Brooklyn brownstone set, ornamentation is out of style. In contrast to the restoration frenzy of the 1990s, people are once again ripping out old moldings in favor of sleeker looks. And folks building $10 million homes are happy with cheap pillars from Home Depot even as they spend $15,000 on a refrigerator and $30,000 on kitchen countertops. Lupo still shakes his head recalling the time he hand-delivered a box of small display pedestals to an East Side steakhouse. “These things are $40 each?” said the restaurant manager, accepting the delivery. “That pissed me off,” said Lupo. “I said, ‘You got some balls. First of all, I’m doing your boss a favor. You’re making me wait here, and while I’m waiting, $12 for a baked potato? And you’re calling me a thief!’”

A bust in the showroom of Lupo’s grandfather, the company company founder Thomas Lupo. “He was very vain,” said Lupo.
Photo: Anne Kadet

Even so, the company is still doing enough business to support Lupo and his crew of craftsmen. “But if I didn’t own the building, I would have been out of business years ago,” he said.

Back in his office, Lupo said he could keep the business going. He might even prefer to. But his crew of craftsmen — skilled workers from Ecuador and Puerto Rico who have been with the company for decades — are talking of retiring. And he has no idea how he might replace them: “I wouldn’t even know where to look.” His only child, a daughter who is pregnant with what will be his first grandchild, is an events planner who has zero interest in the business. It’s a shift from Lupo himself. While he studied business and education at St. John’s University and briefly considered becoming a history teacher, there was never any serious question about whether he would take over from his father. “I don’t know if I took the path of least resistance or whatever, but I liked it,” he said.

His favorite part of the job? The quirky artists, inventors, and set designers who need help with their projects. “I always admire people who could think outside the box,” he said. In fact, his business might have quietly vanished were it not for Ellen Harvey, a Bushwick artist he met in 2013 when she asked him to help her make a spaceship out of columns for a show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Last week, Harvey posted an SOS Reel on Instagram — a 17-second pan of the compo room. “I’m so sad. I stopped by to say hi to Mr. Lupo at the American Wood Column Company and he’s closing!!!!” she wrote. “This is such a loss. Trying to figure out how to save all these molds. Once they’re gone, they’re gone — a whole vocabulary of ornament lost.”

Ellen Harvey photographed display panels in the company show room. From left: Photo: Ellen Harvey/B)2017 Etienne Frossard, all rights reservedPhoto: Ellen Harvey/B)2017 Etienne Frossard, all rights reserved

Ellen Harvey photographed display panels in the company show room. From top: Photo: Ellen Harvey/B)2017 Etienne Frossard, all rights reservedPhoto: El… more
Ellen Harvey photographed display panels in the company show room. From top: Photo: Ellen Harvey/B)2017 Etienne Frossard, all rights reservedPhoto: Ellen Harvey/B)2017 Etienne Frossard, all rights reserved

The post received hundreds of comments from followers mourning the loss of the business and offering ideas for how to save to the collection. “This is a potential tragedy — the Smithsonian should step in,” wrote one commenter.

“We have a sense that we are living in a world that is changing very fast and we are losing things you can’t get back,” said Harvey. “When you lose a skill, it’s hard to regain that skill and pass it on. I think a lot of people miss the idea of things that are made by hand. Maybe they don’t make economic sense, but they make a lot of emotional sense for people. And tastes change. Maybe ornament is not fashionable right now, and people think it’s inherently reactionary in some way, but ornament can be for everyone, and beautiful, and kind of ‘dictator chic’ as well.”

“Now all these people are contacting him and offering help,” she added. “Weirdly, Instagram actually created a conversation and some options.”

The wood shop’s entertainment center.
Photo: Anne Kadet

Display pieces.
Photo: Anne Kadet

Among those contacting Lupo were that morning’s visitors, including Micah Springut, founder and CEO of Monumental Labs in Greenpoint, a startup that uses AI-powered robots to mill stone (his clients include Carnegie Hall and the Frick). “It’s devastating to think it all might disappear,” said Springut, surveying the showroom when Lupo was out of earshot. “I hope he’s not just getting rid of this stuff. There are certain things here we can use, like all of these capitals. We can have them in the shop, we can display them, we can scan them and we can digitize them. Once they’re digitized, it’s very, very simple to manufacture them.”

Back in his office, Lupo said he hadn’t given much consideration to the future of his collection, much less his own future. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself,” he said of his pending retirement. He wonders if he will regret it. “Part of me is like, Maybe it’s time to do other things. You know, be like my friends: ‘Want to go for lunch?’” But he’s been thinking of closing ever since the business reached its 100-year mark, and that was ten years ago. “Everything comes to an end,” he said. “I’m impressed it lasted as long as it did.”