Michael Pratt never owned a piano as an adolescent.
He now owns a shop full of them.
Last month, the 45-year-old Pratt opened Picarzo Pianos, 23916 State Road 54 in Lutz.
(Kevin Weiss/Staff Photos)
As one of the few piano dealers in the Tampa area, the small, boutique shop specializes in Steinway and Hailun grand and upright pianos.
The store also offers restored, early 20th century pianos, with relics built as far back as 1904.
For the Land O’ Lakes resident, the new store is a labor of love — and a dream come true.
As a young boy growing up in New York, Pratt had a curiosity about the acoustic, stringed musical instrument. Though his family never owned a piano, he always made an effort to bang on some of the 88 keys whenever he visited friends’ houses.
“I didn’t really know much about what a piano was,” Pratt said. “I would just hit the key…and I would just hear that sound in the air, and it’s like: ‘What a unique noise.’”
He added: “I was just in love with playing it, creating music, creating something — a sound from nothing.”
As he grew older, his fascination didn’t waver.
Upon graduating from New York City’s Columbia University, Pratt owned a synthesizer and a digital piano. He eventually worked his way up to an upright piano, and then a 7-foot Kawai grand.
He moved to Tampa in 2003.
That’s when Pratt began collecting used Steinway pianos.
He would have the instruments refurbished, and sell to customers nationwide through eBay.
Meanwhile, he searched far and wide for “unloved” pianos to fix up.
The hobby, Pratt said, proved “very rewarding.”
“I love helping people,” Pratt said. “I help one family get rid of an instrument that they had no use for, and I help get it to another family who loved it and wanted to start the joy of music.”
Over the course of a decade, his side business outgrew his house.
Pianos could be found in just about every part in the downstairs of Pratt’s home. To his wife’s chagrin, Pratt placed them in the living room, the dining room and even in the garage.
“When I put another upright in the family room — next to the TV — that’s when my wife was like, ‘What are you doing?’”
That’s when the idea for opening a local piano store was born.
“My wife was going to throw me out,” he said, jokingly.
Pratt initially figured he would just use the Lutz storefront to stock his excess pianos, alongside 14 new Hailun models.
He has plans of grandeur in mind, however.
The storeowner dreams the showroom will become a hangout amongst other piano lovers in the neighborhood.
“I want the piano players in this area to have a resource,” he said. “We can congregate, we can talk; they can play some amazing pianos, and we can just have an amazing time.”
He continued: “At some point, I’d like to have concerts here — try and get 50 people sitting down and listening to a top quality piano player.”
Pratt, too, hopes the store will serve as a springboard for reviving youth music education. In fact, he’s already designated three back rooms for piano lessons.
“The idea is to offer a place for local piano teachers to one day teach local students,” he said. “I believe that kids in the neighborhood should learn music; I think it’s been dying out.”
He added: “Music is…just an important part of life, and to see classical music and stuff fading — I just want to bring it back somehow.”
Despite a hectic schedule that includes a full-time career in the health care industry, Pratt still makes an effort to play the keys everyday.
Though, he admits he’s “not very good.”
“I play just for the enjoyment,” Pratt said. “In fact, I think my 8-year-old has surpassed me; I hear him playing Christmas songs, and I feel like, ‘Oh, my goodness, he’s better than I am.’”
Pratt’s preferred music of choice — anything classical.
He noted he has a particular appreciation for compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.
“That’s music,” he said. “You hear it, and it just sounds interesting; more so than the current popular music that’s out there that’s three chords — that’s got its place, too.”
Yet, Pratt’s also a fan of more contemporary 20th century composers, like Michael Feinstein, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hammerstein.
“I fell in love with that kind of music,” he said.
To Pratt, all acoustic pianos are “living instruments.”
Two identical models, for example, can have a “completely different tone and pitch,” Pratt said.
It’s another reason he remains enamored by them.
“It has its own character; every one has a unique personality,” he said. “They’re just gorgeous instruments.”
Picarzo Pianos is open for daily appointments between 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Regular store hours are Wednesdays from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturdays from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
For more information, visit Picarzo.com, or call (813) 586-3320.
Published January 4, 2017