Businesses evolve. They grow physically larger, or expand their products and services, as the BS&R Group did.
Formerly Bermuda Strippers, the company began operations about 1970 as an old, strictly ‘dip & strip’ wood and metal shop.
Tony Madeiros, who bought the business in 1976, added a spray booth for refinishing purposes and changed the name to Bermuda Stripping & Refinishing. Furniture repairs and antique restoration soon followed.
The evolution continued.
John Madeiros, the owner’s brother and manager, said: “Because we were stripping so many shutters, it was just a natural progression to start building shutters,”
His brother, Tony Madeiros, took over downstairs neighbour, Devonshire Carpentry, and purchased shutter-making equipment from a business discontinuing its city- based space. The Devonshire locale, which had been a sawmill and mill shop since the 1920s, was in a sense returning to its roots. Mr. Madeiros ensured its continuation by purchasing the real estate about 1995. The recent grouping of these diverse, but related interests under the BS&R label effectively resolved a longstanding difficulty the company had with branding. Advertising is simpler, according to the manager, as Bermuda Stripping & Refinishing, Bermuda Antique Restorations and T-Made Custom Carpentry are immediately recognized as divisions of the BS&R Group. Exterior paint upgrades have also been completed. The BS&R building is now pale green with a dark green trim. Its burgundy entrance repeats a colour in the company’s new sign and complements the handcrafted teak out- door furniture on its verandah.
The classic Adirondack chairs, loveseats and tables lead into the showroom.
Here, fine reproductions, antique restorations and custom made windows and doors are also on display.
“We all get our hands dirty,” Tony Madeiros said of himself, brother John and son Anthony. “… We don’t sit here in our office on the computer. I supervise the work and actually do it, so I’m a working owner… I’m a traditional cabinet maker, so I make period reproductions.”
Such reproductions, according to Anthony Madeiros, are based on something one of them has seen.
John Madeiros said:
“You can come here with the concept of a door. We can build it. We can finish it [and] hang it. It’s a one- stop shop.”
The stripping and refinishing division uses chemicals to strip away old finishes. Cycles, and other metal objects and architectural millwork benefit from its expertise. The division’s only competitors use a mechanical means of scraping. But as John Madeiros explained:
“When you scrape wood, you loose your profiles.”
Tony Madeiros added:
“We set the mark for most people because our level of expertise is vast. We have that quality standard that will never be compromised.”
BS&R’s repeat customers might be homeowners, con- tractors, young or old, Bermudian or resident.
“We can deal with Tucker’s Town [and] anywhere in between,” John Madeiros said. “We get the 16-year-old that brings his bike in to be stripped… and we do commercial and residential. There’s really no limit.”
The company is mindful of its mission to maintain quality despite the current times.
“Everybody’s struggling with the economy the way it is right now — and that’s the way it is here — but our quality has not diminished,” John Madeiros said.
Like his father and uncle, Anthony Madeiros works to ensure the consistency he said keeps the business going.
“We try to do our best to make everybody happy, accommodate everybody,” he said. “… We will never do something fast just to get it out.”