This article is part of an ongoing series highlighting legacy businesses in Providence. Please submit other local establishments that have existed for 25 years or more here.

The Avery Piano Company has some pianos older than Providence’s City Hall building. With pianos from the mid-1800s onward, some of the instrumental restorations completed by Avery’s technicians can be considered preservation in their own right.

The storefront, located in the Avery Building at 256 Weybosset Street, sells, repairs, and restores pianos, with a specialty for bringing Steinway pianos from years gone by back into playing condition, according to Christopher Ricci, who has worked at Avery for several decades now.

The business has been run by Ricci’s family since 1972, but the Avery Piano Company has existed in this very storefront since the mid-1920s.

According to The Evening Bulletin, the Avery Piano Store held its grand opening on Friday, Sept. 11, 1925. The building, constructed the same year the store opened, is listed on the National Register. The two-story brick building was typical of retail spaces constructed around the 1920s and is sandwiched between two taller buildings, which are now home to Providence Living and the Johnson & Wales University Security Office.  The building is also across the street from the iconic Axelrod Music sign.

Today, the business offers restoration, repair, and cleaning services for pianos — from shiny new electric keyboards to grand pianos that have seen better days.

“​​We do a lot of that restoration work. We do a lot of service on the road,” Ricci said. They have worked with most of the musical and educational institutions in the city. “If there’s a piano in here, in your school, chances are we’ve sold it to you or worked on it, or a combination of the two,” Ricci said.

The establishment spans three stories, with the workshop in the basement, the showroom on the ground floor, and storage for some of the oldest instruments on the second floor.

The basement includes seemingly endless lines of shelving with all the supplies imaginable needed for piano restoration and repair — paint, glue, tools, and more.

Kurt, a piano technician, had been repairing and restoring pianos at Avery for decades, since before the Ricci family took over the business. He explained that generally, the oldest pianos he restores are from the 1850s, or thereabouts.

Ricci described the level of detail, attention, and craft that goes into each restoration. Beforehand, you might see “the veneer falling off, the piano’s in a state of disrepair basically. So everything comes apart.” Gesturing to the internal infrastructure of a Steinway grand piano from the 1920s, he explained how the pins and strings are removed, and each surface is repainted, resurfaced, and refinished. Pedals may be replaced, keys buffed up, and wooden details restored. “Then it comes back looking like new.”

The top floor of the building is accessible by the freight elevator, which Ricci estimated was installed in the 1930s (and hadn’t really been touched since). He pulled the grates across the enormous elevator door, designed to allow one or more pianos through at a time. 

The second floor is home to some of the oldest restored pianos in Avery’s possession — some are owned by the company, while others are owned by locals who have asked Avery to maintain and steward their pianos. Some pianos include hand-painted scenes, specialty trims, and ornate wood carvings.

Steinway, one of the most iconic piano manufacturers, decided it would no longer sell through Avery Piano Company in 1997. Ricci explained that it was a difficult change to weather, though they still sell and restore vintage Steinway pianos. “We were just little Rhode Island,” he said. “We didn’t have that much power.”

Even long after Steinway pulled out of the Ocean State, with changing technological and economic tides, piano sales aren’t what they used to be. Ricci explained that there was a boom during the pandemic when people had more time at home and were seeking creative outlets. Now, the future is a bit more uncertain, but he remains hopeful.

“That’s the way businesses go on and change, so to speak,” Ricci said. “But there’s still interest enough that allows us to stay here,” and hopefully for years to come, he added.

By Katy Pickens / Planning & Preservation Writer / kpickens@ppsri.org