Our history
Our history
begins in the distant 1897
Gargiulo carpentry
Handicraft and Design company based in Positano, a small town on the Amalfi Coast, characterized by Mediterranean architecture ... a multitude of stairways and "alleys" that lead to the sea and open to shops, boutiques and characteristic restaurants.
Salvatore, Francesco, Antonio and Salvatore
The company invests four generations by mixing, through design, the knowledge of the ancient master cabinetmakers of the Amalfi Coast with that of Innovation and Technological Research.
The beginning of our long history begins towards the 1920s with Francesco Gargiulo
Francesco (first from left), attracted by the peculiarities of life in Positano, moved from the adjacent Sorrentine Peninsula for the love of Maria Attanasio and began to collaborate with her father, Salvatore, who owned a shop near the beach of Positano.
Francesco's workshop was a breeding ground for young students, in the wake of the Renaissance workshop model, where the students entered as rough carpenters and left as wood prose writers and poets. Among the many pupils there were the children.
Vito Gargiulo opened in 1959 a factory in Milan specialized in the production of frames for artists, he worked for the “Ricordi” and the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. In the homonymous place he became friends with the best known Lucio Fontana, Julian Schnabel, the famous Italian jazz player Enrico Rava, Ibrahim Kodra and many others.
Giulio Gargiulo artist, gallerist, chess player and impresario of Positano fashion, forged art and friendship relationships with Eduardo Arrojo, Tano Festa, Ibrahim Kodra, Mario Schifano, Peter Thompson and guitarist Shawn Phillips. He also befriended music figures of the caliber of Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.
"[...] a trip to a small rural village in southern Italy, just to meet a carpenter / philosopher friend."
(Mick Jagger - The Rolling Stones)
Another brother moved to New York in 1959, continuing his father's mastery overseas, combining it with the musical and singing skills common to the whole family.
Emanuela, a pink entrepreneur, opened the first music store on the coast towards the end of the fifties.
Returning to the head of the school, he was attracted to violin making and music. He was a friend of painters - travelers from Northern Europe, Russian exiles such as Vasilij Necitailov and Ivan Zagoruiko, Campania as Vincenzo Caprile painter of the Neapolitan school (School of Resina), known for the picturesque genre scenes of Neapolitan life.
The third generation is represented by Antonio Gargiulo
Antonio took over the management of the company since 1975, carrying on Francesco's ideals such as respect for matter, composition, proportion and ethics and pedagogy of the trade.
Antonio worked in the historical period of the "Positano Fashion", refining the interior architecture of various local reception structures and various houses in Positano, Rome, Naples and Lecce.
His works were appreciated by various personalities including the director Lina Wertmuller, for whom he designed terrace armchairs, Eduardo de Filippo, a well-known Neapolitan actor, for whom he created libraries for his Roman home in Velletri, the dancer and choreographer Leonide Massine (former owner of the small "Li Galli" archipelago), to whom he created various furnishings, Santa Ercolani Borghese, owner of the Torre Clavel di Fornillo, works for the Bacile and Lorini Families, various freelancers, university professors such as Professor Alfonso Ruffo and recently furnishing accessories for the television presenter and journalist Alessandro Cecchi Paone, from Positano by adoption.
The fourth generation ... Antonio's children
The fourth generation is represented by Salvatore Gargiulo, a twenty-eight year old architect, trained at the Sorrento art school, studying restoration and Sorrento inlay, graduated with full marks from the University of Campania, Luigi Vanvitelli, with a thesis entitled "SuperPositano - Architecture for another city ”, a visionary and dreamy Positano, with speaker Professor Architect Cherubino Gambardella.
Maria Gargiulo, continuing her family musical passion, graduated in transverse flute at the Conservatory of Music in Naples "San Pietro a Majella", specialized in Chamber Music and was a student of the first flute of the San Carlo Theater in Naples and of the Teatro Bellini of Catania.
As per family tradition,
collaborates in the management of the company, together with his sister Emanuela.
The purpose of the fourth generation is to combine academic studies with the ancient craft of cabinetmaker, reinterpreting the concept of Mediterranean design and attention to detail that has been carved in wood for more than a century of history.
