INSIDE

“Essentially, pianos are not immortal,” John P. Ford says. “They have a life span of about a half a century to three-quarters of a century.”

That’s where he comes in. Ford is owner and president of Ford Piano Inc. in Peekskill, a fourth-generation business that specializes in rebuilding the popular instruments. Together with sons John P. III and Michael, Ford will gut your piano if necessary, giving it new strings, tuning pins, tuning pin blocks, keys and hammers as well as a new finish.

Or if you’re looking to buy, he can sell you an instrument that he’s rehabilitated or one from the company’s Mathushek line, which is made with Asian parts.

Why would you need Ford’s services? First, consider the numbers: A new grand piano from the top names – Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, Knabe, Baldwin – might cost you $40,000 to $50,000. For $10,000 to $20,000, Ford can overhaul your Steinway or Mason & Hamlin over a three- to six-month period. Or you can buy a Mathushek for about $6,500.

But there’s another reason to avail yourself of Ford’s expertise:  He’s that good. Stephen Sondheim had two of his instruments serviced by Ford. So did Duke Ellington. One of his is now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.

Ford has also done work for the likes of John Lennon, Barry Manilow, Fleetwood Mac, Hall & Oates, Madison Square Garden and the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

You don’t have to be the Duke or a Beatle to restore a piano. But it helps.

As Ford puts it, “You don’t have to know how to fly a plane to build one. But it might be nice.”

He is like that, a gregarious man who laughs and banters easily at his shop, a three-story, 20,000-square-foot space that is filled with pianos, piano parts, dust and the heady smells of wood and varnish. Ford knows how to fly the plane, so to speak.

“I am musical, and I do play,” he says, mostly jazz and blues, though he was classically trained.

Son Michael, who’s at a different kind of keyboard as we chat – the computer – also plays, mainly pop standards. On this particular day, son John P. III is out in the field, making a tuning house call. Keeping watch over visitors, including that pesky mailwoman, is Tyson, a rescue Lab/Shepherd mix. She doesn’t play. But she does have a melodious bark.