Carving a new lifestyle

It was a strange place to find his personal heaven.

Not far west of Myakka City, Ron Massaro stood in the heat of his workshop as another one of his wood projects twirled at high rotations on a lathe. He was in the process of using a shaping tool to create a piece of art that even the angels would admire.

Many would point toward Massaro’s beautiful home, the pool or the nearby, picturesque pond as significant reasons why he has settled down in the area after testing a myriad of professions to find his calling.

With his family surrounding him, his wife, Alessandra, and kids, Louie and Elisa, you would think he would spend as little time as

possible in that workshop, which occupies about 2,000 square feet to the side and behind his house. Due to its size, it hasn't been feasible to air condition the environment, which means Massaro likely will lose weight during the summers.

Despite the heat, the workshop might as well have pearly gates considering the way Massaro feels about it. Well, make that pearlwood gates.

Now 47, Massaro is two years into a new career that keeps him on the verge of obsessing over the products he sells mostly by word of mouth.

He looked over at a wooden desk that had been ordered from his Wooden Armory business. He was told it looked like a very basic desk.

Basic?

Massaro jumped up on the desk, which under his weight didn’t show any of the heave or ho usually found in discount store models. He jumped back off, and grabbed a heavy rubber hammer. Just to make a point, he started banging the desk apart.

He pointed to the dovetail joints. “There is not a screw in this desk,” he said.

Obviously, he takes deep pride in his woodworking skills, which he learned first from his dad Tony’s uncle, Rocco Massaro.

When Ron Massaro was 13 years old, working in construction already, he started doing carpentry. He already had the woodworking bug from watching Uncle Rocco perform his magic.

By the time he was in high school, he was working in a place called Kramer Cabinets in Bethel Park, Pa. He didn’t expect woodworking would be in his future, but he was learning.

The trail he covered from there included other stops in the U.S. and in various cities in Italy, where he met Alessandra more than 20 years ago. He ran a welding machine producing plant and she was an employee there, a job that she eventually quit so they could pursue their relationship without having a “conflict of interest.”

The journey eventually landed them here as his parents, Tony and Eileen, were planning retirement in Sarasota. Ron Massaro was living life as a yacht captain when one day while working out at Ming Wu Martial Arts, he was asked by the owner, Jessie Vi, to build a wooden structure called a “mook jong,” which basically looks like a cat tree (only wood) with arms extending out of a base. It is used to practice martial arts moves and usually mimics the height of its owner.

Massaro charged $600 for the project, and then started selling more of them. It wasn’t long before he decided he could make a career from his woodwork.

Adding to his decision to explore the woodworking territory was his love of the dying art of marquetry. He was introduced to marquetry, in which the artist crafts designs or copies photos into a wooden piece by connecting together tiny wood shavings, when he visited art meccas of Rome, Florence and Pisa.

One of the reasons marquetry has become less common is that it takes so long to finish a piece. Massaro displayed a beautiful lazy Susan that had a picture of two cats on the top. He had to use more than 10 types of wood to get the coloring perfect.

“It’s like a mosaic made with wood,” he said. “But from a business standpoint, not too many people want to pay the price that it takes in making marquetry.”

Massaro spent eight full days working on the lazy Susan and charged $350 for it. It doesn’t make economical sense, but he loves it.

Did Alessandra ever expect her husband to be an artist?

“Maybe not an artist,” said Alessandra, who wears a bloodwood and maple ring, crafted by her husband, on her right hand. “I never would have thought about him doing something like this. But I did know he was capable of being creative.”

She handles the business and promotional side for her husband in an endeavor that could be risky financially.

“He really puts himself into whatever he does,” she said.  “It’s like any new adventure … you think about what could go wrong. I know one way or another, he will make it work. Whether he is woodworking or running a winery, he does it with passion.”

The business, for the time being, might be more about furniture, but Massaro hopes he can create more marquetry pieces in the future

“I like the challenge of marquetry better,” he said. “When a customer has a big smile, that makes me feel great.”

Does he feel like a Picasso?

“Yes,” he answered with a wide smile. “I do. I definitely do.”