“Born and raised on a farm, the year I graduated was the year my father sold out of farming. At the age of 17 most places wouldn’t hire me due to insurance reasons. I graduated from LI and took shop my Jr and Sr years, so I went to my shop teacher and explained my situation.

He found me a job with a mason named Fred Kenney who was adding onto White’s Market in Lyndonville. He hired me for $1.25 an hour. Wow, I didn’t get paid working on the farm. I couldn’t climb staging or use power tools until I was 18! So, I made the mud by hand, put bricks and materials into 5 gallon pails, and flung it up as best I could.

I worked for Fred for 2 ½ years and because he retired, I went on my own from the age of 20.

A friend of mine suggested if I could spend $50 each week to buy tools, it wouldn’t be long before I would be in good shape for when it was time for me to strike out on my own. He was right. I started with a shovel, wheel barrow and mortar hoe. This is how I use to mix mud, today we have a bag mixer with a motor. I added a trowel, jointer, 2’ & 4’ levels and a few other needed tools; away I went building hundreds of chimneys!

As my business grew, I added steel staging (no more building with 2X4 and Plank staging!) a 1-ton dump truck, enclosed trailer for tools, a bucket truck that reaches 50’ in the air.

As decades have passed, my knowledge and know how have grown. Times changed from block chimneys to brick chimneys, real stone to cultured stone, from terra cotta flues to stainless-steel liners.

Cultured stone is the in thing to veneer a chimney or even the front of a house, it looks real. We still can do real stone chimneys and stone walls, if that is what the customer requests. We still build an occasional fireplace, it’s not as popular as it was years ago due to heat loss out the damper. Brick or stone, the look and feel of a fireplace is unmatched.

Cleaning chimneys is a part of the trade as well. Most can be cleaned with a wire brush, but for the more difficult ones, we have a power cable cleaner, that gets the customer’s job done.

The best part of doing this work is doing a job well-done, and seeing the smiles it puts on my faces, as well as mine, knowing my work and their enjoyment will be around for years to come.”

— Gary Nelson