Promise kept: Goshen business owner pays back donors who helped him stay afloat following fire
When Sal Mastropolo III, of Authentic Antique Lumber, called the customers and vendors who donated money after a fire put him in a $100,000 hole to return their money, they weren't sure what to think.
More Stories
An Orange County business owner who almost lost everything due to a fire has been calling up all the people who donated to help the business survive to give them their money back.
When Sal Mastropolo III, of Authentic Antique Lumber, called the customers and vendors who donated money after a fire put him in a $100,000 hole to return their money, they weren't sure what to think.
"We're going to send that money back to you and we're going to send you a gift card," Mastropolo told a restaurant manager who donated. "What?" the restaurant manager replied. "But we're not expecting that money back."
"Well, that's what we're doing though," Mastropolo said. "It's the right thing to do."The team there recently remade an entire set of custom-made furniture for that restaurant because the first set was ruined in the September 2024 fire.Mastropolo said a stain rag spontaneously combusted in a trashcan inside the business's sanding and epoxy building.The new building was not yet insured.Several large projects were lost, and the business was on the brink.Mastropolo said that following the fire, he had some vulnerable moments in which he thought he might not be able to save the business.
Mastropolo maxed out his accounts, took out a loan and asked the public for donations.He planned to rebuild the sanding and epoxy building, keep his 18 employees and eventually pay back the 80-plus donors who reached out after News 12's initial story on the fire.The employees had faith.
Lead finisher Terrence Tobak said that after the fire he was thinking more about the business's future than his own.His main focus was starting over on the giant restaurant order.
"It was not so much about 'Where am I going?,' because I know my role here," Tobak said. "It was more so, 'How are we going to pivot and reuse the space that we already have?'"Mastropolo's late father, Sal Mastropolo Jr., started the business in 1972 taking down barns and selling the wood.
News 12 asked Mastropolo what he thinks Sal Jr. would think of the business's recovery.
"He'd probably find something I could have done a little better," he said smiling, "but I think he'd be proud."
