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Rock of Ages: Thriving Stonecutting Business Started Out Small
By John Hubbard
Jeff Gammelin
looked back on his many years at Freshwater Stone & Brick Work, back
to its beginnings in 1976 when he and wife Candy started the Orland
company.
Jeff Gammelin, right front,
confers with employees Dana Wilbur of Frankfort and Ronny
Johnson of Orland on plans for a stonecutting job, while Bill
Gulliver of Blue Hill and Charles Giosia of Orland examine a
15-ton rock in front of the stonecutting shed at Freshwater
Stone & Brick Work in Orland.
STAFF PHOTO BY JOHN HUBBARD |
Working with stone
was not something that Gammelin picked up as a child .
“I threw more rocks
than I ever collected,” he said.
The stonecutting
operation came about after Gammelin started building his new home.
In it has a huge stone fireplace and chimney.
A picture on the
wall of his office at the stone works shows his wife sitting by the
then-new fireplace. It was huge, dwarfing Candy and probably anyone
else who might visit the home.
From big fireplaces
come big dreams, it appears, for Freshwater Stone & Brick Work now
has more than 30 employees. There is also an attractive suite of
offices with showroom; three large shop buildings where stonecutting
and finishing is done; three cranes; a fleet of smaller vehicles;
and several assorted items of heavy equipment.
In the early days
of Freshwater Stone, Candy helped a lot.
“She worked on the
fireplace, she mixed mud, carried mortar and stone. Then we had
children and that all changed,” Gammelin said.
Part of the
inspiration for the stone works came from Gammelin’s boyhood home in
a rural part of
New Jersey—Lake
Mohawk—where
there were about 50 homes made of stone, logs and brick. They were
modest but very whimsical, Gammelin recalled. “It was a beautiful
area, woodsy, a perfect place to grow up.”
The Gammelins came
to Maine
to teach school but soon got involved in building their own home and
when people saw the stonework on their fireplace, soon one after
another asked Gammelin to do their projects.
The secret to
Gammelin’s success has been a unique style that involves
composition, use of a mosaic pattern, and a well-crafted finished
stone.
The business has
done so well that Freshwater has bought a mountain in Frankfort,
near the Prospect town line.
“We bought Mosquito
Mountain so we could quarry our own stone,” Gammelin said. “Getting
the stone is half the battle.”
Gammelin took out a
printed history of the quarrying in Frankfort and Prospect, pointing
to photographs of old stoneyards no longer in existence, but that at
one time were part of a major area industry.
Even when local
stone is available (boulders out of fields may produce strikingly
beautiful cut stone), much of the company’s supply comes from Italy.
Stone commonly
comes from Italy, Brazil and China, Gammelin said, and his company
buys the Italian stone—the best that can be found.
The reason that
stone is cheaper to ship than it is to find in the United States is
that the Italians have such an efficient cutting process. Their
tools are the best and Freshwater buys Italian tools, too.
Freshwater products
are sought by architects and builders who put together
top-of-the-line homes, but not everything is pricey.
“We also sell
stones for steps and palletized stone from our granite quarry, and
that’s within anyone’s reach,” Gammelin said. |
