Adam Markowitz was struggling to make a living as a jazz pianist in the mid-1980s when he enrolled in the North Bennett Street School in Boston to study piano technology. With the skills he acquired there, he began supporting his music habit by becoming a piano technician. As he teased some classic Bill Evans out of a cherry-red Kawai baby grand piano in his Germantown storefront with his "main employee," Walter the hounddog, laying at his feet, he recounted, "In the beginning, I used to go to New York City and tune at Merkin Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, the 92nd Street Y, and for 'The Listening Room,' a weekly classical performance radio show on WOR radio." In the 1990s, he was asked to be Andre Previn's personal piano technician after he tuned a concert piano for the renowned composer-conductor. The list of commercial artists that Markowitz has tuned for personally, in concerts, and in recording sessions also includes Marvin Hamlisch, Roberta Flack, Barry Manilow, Tony Bennett, and Johnny Cash.

Eventually, Markowitz began selling used pianos on the side out of his house. The size of pianos, obviously, prohibited him from growing a home-based business, and so he eventually spread into a storefront in Middletown. He made good business decisions and maintained an excellent reputation in the music community, and inspiringly turned his passion for music into a successful, multifaceted business.

This Manhattan-born New Paltz resident has been able to continue growing his business for the past 18 years—moving it from Middletown to Gardiner to the Columbia County hamlet of Germantown two years ago when his current location opened up. "This area seems much more artistically active and people seem to appreciate having a piano store in the area," he said, as he guided me through the two ground-floor showrooms and semi-finished basement. Although he admits the 110-plus pianos he kept at the Middletown location was "a little over the top," he's managed to fit about 80—uprights, digitals, and a few baby grands—into this limited space.

One of his keys to success has been to keep overhead to a minimum through doing everything that he can by himself. He owns his entire inventory and he has no full-time employees. His operation has grown to include a couple of technicians and helpers, whom he hires as subcontractors on a freelance basis to help him maintain his extensive client base, to aid him moving pianos, and to refinish refurbished pianos. "We are a compact and very efficient operation," he explains. And by "we" I assume he was referring to Walter and himself.

His hours of operation are dictated by his clients' needs, as he meets with people by appointment only. I asked him why and he replied, "This does several things for me. It makes it unnecessary for me to pay someone to be here. There are no sales commissions to pay out because I do all of the selling myself. And it insures that the customer gets to deal with the owner every time, so then there is no confusion about motives. I always try to find exactly the right piano for every given customer." (I suspect pianos are probably in the least likely category of spontaneous purchases. The fact is that most of the time someone has already decided they want and have room for a piano, and are planning to invest up to tens of thousands of dollars in buying one.)