It all started with some stolen photography equipment and a warehouse.
Martha Taylor, long time owner of Immortal Piano, now on 40th and Belmont, never intended to go into the business of restoring and selling vintage pianos.
Back in the 1980′s, she was fresh out of photography school in Boston and living in San Francisco when all her cameras got stolen. Her make-ends-meet job as a messenger and her friend’s as a night watchman led to “discovering” 500 pianos in a warehouse. They were going to be hauled off as trash unless someone wanted to move them all out in less than a week to another location.
So, not knowing one thing about pianos and never even playing one herself, she took on the unique opportunity she saw in front of her and rented a big warehouse in Oakland for her 500 new best friends. She invited dozens of artists in to rent studio space that helped pay the rent on the warehouse while she learned the honorable trade of piano restoration.
We would have never heard of Martha and she would still be in California – locally famous for her meticulous workmanship – if it wasn’t for a wedding in Portland 13 years ago.
Having come to Portland four years ago myself just to visit a quirky friend with a passion for community, I can understand what happened. She couldn’t go home after the wedding – she had just found home and needed to figure out how to stay.
Most of the independent piano stores that were here when she first relocated her business to Southeast Portland are gone: victims of recessionary times, competition from chain stores and a general switch to electronic keyboards.
But Immortal Piano Company, just like the name says, lives on.
Each time I go over to visit Martha, it’s just a quick walk for me from the Swap Shop to her quaint little store front – across and a little up from the 39th Street Walgreens at 4011 SE Belmont.
On my last visit Martha never stopped working on the old piano bench she was restoring in the corner of her store as she patiently explained that most people mistakenly believe that buying a new piano or digital keyboard is the only alternative once their much-loved instrument starts showing its age. While it is true that many of the old relics are not cost-effective to fix, a quality vintage piano that has lived its life well can be returned to a condition that exceeds that of a comparably priced new piano.
Most of the pianos that Martha and her apprentices (all women by the way) restore and refurbish are uprights from the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. At the turn of the century the piano was the major industry in America. You had to have a piano and a stove. That’s how houses worked back then so she has lots and lost of models to choose from when she goes looking for pianos to restore.
Martha thinks of herself as providing “Pianos for the People.” It’s a good feeling when she takes a minute to sit back and think of the 1000′s of old pianos in Portland that she has rescued from decay and put back into good use.
Not every old piano can be revitalized. In fact, most can’t. A good part of Martha’s week is spent doing exactly what you might do if you were looking for a good buy. She visits a lot of people offering up pianos for sale. A full 80% of what she finds can’t be brought back into tune. Portland weather is hard on wood. Pianos are under a lot of pressure per square inch to keep the strings taunt and have to be structurally sound to be worth investing in.
You can save yourself a lot of heartache and dollars spent in the wrong direction, if you let Martha know your price range and have her find a piano for you that will stay in tune and is worth the money you are going to pay for it.
Martha’s biggest customers right now are Southeast families with young kids just getting started in their lessons and women in their 40′s and 50′s who took lessons as children and want to return to the piano. These older pianos that Martha so lovingly rebuilds and refurbishes fit great in our older restored houses.
Not many, but a few good pianos come in and out of her shop for $1,500 and she’s happy to put you on a list for one of these gems if she doesn’t have one on the floor for you right away. If you have the money to spend, basic vintage pianos are always available in the $2,600 – $3,500 range. If your rich aunt and uncle are looking for a place to invest their nest egg – higher end pianos are $6-$12,000.
What I really like about Martha is the same thing I enjoy about our real estate sponsors, Jarrett and Tracy of Neighborhood Works and our bicycle store sponsors Demetri of Veloce Bicycles and Dean and Rachel at Clever Cycles. Yes, they are in business to sell big ticket items that most of us would purchase just once or twice in our lifetimes, if at all. But, you know and I know that if all they cared about was money, they’d be in a different part of town or a different part of the country.
They make an honest living here, enjoy Southeast Portland just as much as we do and are willing to do what it takes to make it all work. It comes across loud and clear from the minute you first start talking to them that what they really care about it the right fit. The right house or the right instrument or the right vehicle for the right person. Now, that’s good neighborhood business.
Martha has a great little toy play area right in the front of her store, so go ahead and stop by, kids in tow, whenever you are walking by on Belmont and see the beautiful pianos waiting for a new home. If you want a great read, check out the full story of Martha’s Oakland warehouse escapades in the about us section of her info
immortalpiano
com infoimmortalpianocom
. Be sure to let her know you heard about her from the Sunnyside Swap Shop Co-op.
All of our sponsors, Martha included, have a “home” page just like this one right here on the Swap Shop web site. If you have forgotten the days or location for the after dark dessert spot, need the number for the local car repair shop, and/or are ready for that massage studio in the heart of the Sunnyside neighborhood, check out the sponsors’ page. Sponsors business cards are also lined up on the left side of every page and you can click through to their write ups and web pages. They are also all listed out under the sponsors tab as well. There is space for your comments after each sponsor post so you can add to the live local/buy local dialogue.
We all live better when each of us is better connected. Thanks for living local and being a part of the Sunnyside Swap Shop Co-op community.
Written by Karen Hery, Sunnyside Swap Shop Co-op facilitator/coordinator: sunnysideswapshopgmailcom sunnysideswapshopgmailcom
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