Venice Art Terrazzo Co. honored for work at Panna Maria center

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This terrazzo medallion at the Polish Heritage Center in Panna Maria, Texas, was installed by built San Antonio-based Venice Art Terrazzo, a family business. The company was honored for the nine-foot-diameter piece by the National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association.

This terrazzo medallion at the Polish Heritage Center in Panna Maria, Texas, was installed by San Antonio-based Venice Art Terrazzo, a family business that is one of the oldest terrazzo companies in the country.

This terrazzo ,medallion at the Polish Heritage Center in Panna Maria, Texas, was installed by San Antonio-based Venice Art Terrazzo, a family business that is one of the oldest terrazzo companies in the country. It took the company about a month to install the intricate work. The company was honored for the piece by the National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association.

Lawrence Di Filippo points out highlights in samples for terrazzo floors as his son, Matthew, looks on. Father and son work together at San Antonio-based Venice Art Terrazzo, a family business that is one of the oldest terrazzo companies in the country.

Whenever Lawrence Di Filippo and his wife are at an airport, their attention frequently focuses on the floor.

That's because they’re checking out the work of his colleagues. Di Filippo is a third-generation terrazzo man, and is vice president and treasurer of San Antonio-based Venice Art Terrazzo Co.

"One time, she and I, we were coming from a meeting, and she goes, 'Look, that couple's looking at the floor, too,'" said Di Filippo, 63. "It was another terrazzo family. They were doing the same thing we were doing — looking at other people's work."

The Di Filippo family are helping to keep alive a trade that dates back about 500 years. In its original form, terrazzo was a blend of discarded marble chips and concrete used to create distinctive and durable floors and other surfaces. Today, the blend may involve epoxies and such aggregates as glass and quartz.

The Di Filippo family -- Richard, from left, Lawrence, Mary Jo and Matthew Di Filippo -- own and run Venice Art Terrazzo Co. The business was founded in 1934, and has been run by four generations of the family. The table is an example of their handiwork and also references the family's roots in Italy.

Venice Art Terrazzo's handiwork can be found all over the city. And it has been recognized with awards from the National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association for its work at the Convention Center and the Randolph Brooks Federal Credit Union.

Its most recent recognition from the trade group is for a project at the new Polish Heritage Center in Panna Maria. A team including Lawrence's son Matthew Di Filippo installed an intricate, 9-foot-diameter medallion bearing the seals of Poland, the United States and the state of Texas. Galveston-based artist Steve Harding's design is meant to capture Panna Maria's status as the oldest Polish settlement in the country.

"Everybody that's come in has really been impressed by it," said Aloys J. Notzon, chairman of the center's board. "It's a major feature of the center."

The De Filippos will get a plaque for the project, which they’ll hang alongside the other awards in their offices.

"My personal thing is that we look at all of our jobs as special. And we aren't doing anything to win an award with the association," Lawrence said. "We know what's good work. But it's nice when your peers say it."

The offices have some samples of the company's work, including the floor and a couple of tables. One dates back to the 1930s and depicts Lawrence's aunt; another captures some of the family's heritage. The background is the Italian flag, and the company's elegant logo depicting a man standing in a gondola is in the center.

In recent years, the company has installed terrazzo at the Witte Museum, Trinity University and Palo Alto College, as well as smaller projects in private homes. And Lawrence, his late father and his grandfather all had a hand in projects in the Texas Capitol in Austin. Most of what they do is flooring — both utilitarian and decorative — but they also work on other projects from time to time, including custom countertops.

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Venice Art Terrazzo was founded in 1934 by John De Filippo. He had migrated to the United States from Italy, initially settling in Minnesota. He found a job with Venice Art Marble, which sent him to San Antonio in the 1920s to start an outpost here.

"They told him around the Depression, 'Come on back,' and he said, 'No, I like it here, the weather's good,' " Lawrence said. "He bought the shares, and turned it into Venice Art Terrazzo. So we’ve been Venice Art Terrazzo since 1934."

A lot of terrazzo companies in the United States are family businesses with similar stories, said Sharon Moreno, director of marketing and events for the National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association.

"Javier Grossutti, who has a doctorate in geopolitical trade associations and is out of Italy, he came and spent a week at our office, and he welled up when he was talking about the trade," Moreno said. "It started in the Fruili region of Italy. And a lot of our people can trace their ancestry right back to that area of Italy. He said that does not happen. Normally, once a trade hits another shore, it starts to disappear."

The 100-year-old association, which is based in Fredericksburg, has 145 members, including 108 contractors.

"It's not a huge market," Moreno said.

The longevity of the Di Filippos' business speaks to the quality of their work, she said.

"Terrazzo is not an easy material to put in," she said. "It's labor-intensive. You have to know what you’re doing. It is created on the spot, so for someone to stay in business that long with such an exacting, labor-intensive product, they’re definitely very good."

Lawrence and his siblings grew up around the business. He remembers going to work with his dad, and his grandfather paying him and his siblings a few dollars to sort the burlap sacks that the aggregate came in.

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His father and grandfather died years ago. These days, his mom, Mary Jo De Filippo, is president of the company, and his brother Richard, 68, serves as vice president and secretary. Lawrence's son Matthew, 33, also is an officer with the company.

"When the kids were little, they all did something around here, even the ones that aren't working here," said Mary Jo, 90, who greets visitors from her desk in the lobby. "They used to come here and do all kinds of stuff in the summertime.

"My father-in-law started it, and my husband ran it and now my sons are still here. It was good that they wanted to continue it."

There was no expectation that the third or the fourth generation of the family would keep the business going, Lawrence said. And it's not clear what will happen with the fifth generation.

"My one brother and I, we chose to invest our sweat equity into it to commit to it," Lawrence said. "There are other things that you can do that maybe are a little less stressful, but we wanted to do that.

"My dad, I’m sure he was happy that my brother and I worked here, and I’m happy that (Matthew) did. But I have another son that works part time here, but he's a fireman. He wanted to be a fireman. We want people to do what they wanted to do. I have a brother that's an engineer, a sister that's a teacher and another brother that's an accountant."

At the very least, the tradition of the younger generation playing in the warehouse continues.

"When I was little, I remember coming over there playing in the warehouse on stacks of marble," Matthew, 33, recalled. "My dad would drive around on the forklift. so I grew up coming over here and ended up working here. And now I have a son, too, so I’ll bring him over here, so that's pretty cool. He likes to build stuff, so you never know."

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