Invictus Arc LLC.
Company: Invictus Arc LLC
Owner: Norberto A. Emanuel
Location: 76 Adelaide Ave., Providence (corporate headquarters); 150
Point St. (showroom)
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Employees: Approximately 20
Type of business: Architectural salvage, exterior and interior architectural
items supplier and producer
Annual sales: WND
Providence resident Norberto A. Emanuel, owner of Invictus Arc LLC, an architectural
salvage company, has taken the old saying, “one man’s trash is another man’s
treasure” quite literally.
“We’re a one-stop source and supplier of exterior and interior architectural elements,” he said of the business, which also includes landscaping, roofing and special events rental services.
Emanuel, who lives in a large Victorian home on Adelaide Avenue with his wife, interior decorator and partner Krystal, has made a name for himself in the neighborhood as the man who collects what everyone else throws away. He’s also made a name for himself among his colleagues and competitors as a man with a vision – what was old can be beautified, used and appreciated again.
Invictus Arc, founded five years ago, supplies everything from mantles, light fixtures, fireplaces and balusters for staircases to outdoor water fountains, cherubs, statues and iron gates. Emanuel has a number of skilled craftsmen working with him on sculpture, welding and masonry. Emanuel’s wife, an on-point interior designer, works with clients on their indoor needs, and the company even has a Feng Shui practitioner advising and working with them.
For Emanuel, who took classes at the Rhode Island School of Design as pre-college work, said he decided he wanted to work with his natural artistic talents, but didn’t want to live the starved artist’s life. He always had an eye for architectural styles and old things, but never gave it much thought until five years ago, when he struck out on his own.
“I’d go to department stores and see things on all the buildings and say, ‘That would look great at such and such a place,’ but then I’d dismiss it,” Emanuel said. “My wife calls it junk – I call it a treasure.”
Emanuel not only employs people who can do the work; he can also weld, sculpt and did landscaping for a while before starting his business, and his home reflects his appreciation for the artistry and craftsmanship of the past. With the aid of his wife, the couple’s home looks a lot like the scenes in a Home and Garden magazine. Pieces of marble rescued from the old Outlet building now serve as a plant stand. Large pieces of furniture from the 1900s and 1920s are showy and functional. Stained glass windows – made by Emanuel and his crew – are featured in different rooms, and the home’s many fireplaces are well taken care of.
“I thought it would be nice to go to one place and get it all,” he said of his business, which is opening a warehouse soon (Emanuel already has another in Montreal). “There is no other place like that here.”
For the most part, Emanuel does only minor demolition work in homes, picking out the items he likes. For larger restoration projects, he said he finds himself simply supplying contractors and builders with his pieces, sometimes installing a few, rather than doing the construction work. Although Emanuel owns a few homes in the neighborhood that he has begun to restore, the thrill of his job is the hunt for the hidden treasures in old homes, churches and buildings.
“When I got my properties, I just started fixing them. I never really thought about historic preservation,” he said. “Some of the stuff (I do) is a little over the top, but I’m doing things in a way that’s never been done before in this city. I’m the statue and fountain guy.”
Invictus Arc not only salvages antique pieces, but also does period reproductions in any kind of stone and bronze. Emanuel said he hasn’t yet found a skilled carpenter or woodworker, who could produce his mantels or other pieces, so, for now, he sticks to metal and stone. He travels to Europe regularly for items to bring back, and has even been known to climb into a trash bin in a suit to search through the rubble.
“They were throwing out thousands of dollars of history,” Emanuel said of the old Ebenezer Church, which was being gutted. He climbed into the trash outside the church to find the pew hymnal boxes that had been discarded. “I was out there all night. They had to bring a light out there for me.”
While hundreds of years old artifacts might be plentiful in Europe, Emanuel said there’s a shortage here in Rhode Island and New England. People recognize the value of the pieces they have, he said, and even if they’re willing to part with it, the cost for buying it is outrageous. Every once in a while, though, Emanuel will get lucky and stumble upon something great. He once sold a set on light sconces taken from a house down the street from his for $4,500 on Ebay. They were later auctioned off at Christie’s, he said.
“When I gutted out all those homes for the Met School, I took lots of stuff out,” Emanuel said. “I’m like a kid in the candy store.”
The Capital Grille has a set of Invictus Arc’s lions; another customer in the Midwest has requested thousands of cobblestones that Emanuel said he’s still trying to scrape up. “Smaller items tend to sell to the average person,” he said. The larger items are harder to sell locally because people don’t have the money for a 10-foot tall water fountain, and don’t have the room either. But between locals coming by to purchase things and larger clients all over the country, Emanuel is keeping plenty busy.
“Everything has a life,” he said. “If the furniture could talk, the stories
it would tell you. I love this stuff.”
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