New Buzzi Memorials owner to carry on tradition of craftsmanship

STONINGTON — After more than 50 years in the industry, Harold Buzzi, an accomplished designer and sandblaster renowned in the community for his intricate granite memorials, is passing the Buzzi Memorials torch.

Although he’s been retired for a few years now, his meticulously organized workshop has stayed the same, with all of his tools and supplies in their precise spots.

The 86-year-old still loves to show off the hand-carving skills he learned while working in the family business alongside his father, Angelo Buzzi, who immigrated from Switzerland in 1923. The elder Buzzi’s work can be seen in many buildings throughout the country, including the Library of Congress, the Museum of Natural History in New York City, and the West Virginia Capitol. Closer to home, his handiwork includes the World War I and Roger Williams memorials in Providence. When Angelo Buzzi died in 1964, his son took over and continued until he retired in 2013 at the age of 83.

“My father taught me everything I know. I didn’t join any after-school activities because I would just come home and work with my father,” Buzzi said while holding a piece of carbon carving paper in his workshop. “I hand-lettered everything, but today computers do that. But it doesn’t mean they’re always correct. It’s too bad, because hand-lettering is something that not many people in the business know now — it’s truly an art.”

Above his workbench, phone numbers for clients are written in pencil on the wall next to the telephone — a kind of phone book that cannot be lost.

“Doesn’t everyone have phone numbers written on the wall?” Buzzi laughed as he grabbed an Exacto knife to demonstrate his hand-lettering skills. The master carver still has a steady hand and a good sense of humor.

The business, which his father established in 1933, is well known locally for its iconic “Buzzi Memorials” billboard sign seen from Route 1. Many also recognize the name because Harold’s younger sister is the famous comedian and actress Ruth Buzzi, who starred on “Laugh In.”

New blood

Although the business has been sold to Richard Brooks, a Pawcatuck resident and skilled stone carver, it’ll still be called Buzzi Memorials, as Brooks wants to carry on the legacy while also including his own personal touches and using some of the more modern tools of the industry.

Having trained and worked under Richard Comolli and Robert Greene for 10 years at Comolli Granite Co., Brooks said that having his own business in the community is a dream come true. Until now, he’s worked at Tri-County Memorials in Norwich.

“I want to uphold the traditional craftsmanship but also incorporate today’s art and tools into this place,” Brooks said. “I pride myself on striving to make each memorial custom-made and personal so we’re telling a life story for future generations to look back on their heritage.”

Although a lot of places just have a book that customers look through to choose memorials, Brooks wants to make every stone unique to the family and person.

“I did a stone for a lady once who had a ceramic cross hanging in her kitchen, and so we replicated it into the stone,” he said. “It definitely wasn’t something her family could have gotten out of a book.”

Nod to the past

The business won’t be back up and running for another few months as Brooks, who graduated from Grasso Tech with a focus in carpentry, will be working this fall and winter to organize and redesign the workshop to make things run more efficiently.

The workshop is still full of the original machinery and tools Buzzi and his father used, such as a wooden sandblaster with pulleys and weights, an old compressor with a flywheel and belt, and a roller system that involved a block and tackle to get stones in and out of the truck and into the cemeteries. Brooks said he will replace some of the older machinery with more modern tools and put some of the antique pieces into a mini-museum he hopes to open along with an office and showroom on the first floor of the stone house on the property.

“I think we’ll definitely be in full swing by early next spring,” he said. “I’m really excited to carry on this iconic name and keep the family’s history alive. Hand-carving is kind of a dying art, no pun intended, so I want to let people know how it was done. It’s what separated Harold’s work from everyone else.”

Although the focus will stay on memorials, Brooks said that once Buzzi Memorials is back up and running, he’ll also be able to do architectural work and landscape pieces.

When asked how he feels about the business being operated by someone other than himself, Buzzi said he thinks Brooks will do a decent job.

“It’s difficult to find someone in the business to run the place,” he said. “But Richard was trained by the Comollis, and they helped my father carve the panels for the Federal Reserve Bank in El Paso, so I think he’ll do good.”

bwhite@thewesterlysun.com