Built to Last
William & Carrigan Stone Masons use sustainable methods to create lasting structures.
By Molly Folse Photo by Caleb Chancey
Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids and the Colosseum
have more in common than their inclusion on a list of must-see
manmade creations. Each is a piece of the story of stone
masonry, an art and trade that dates back to ancient civilizations
in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Rome.
The average person may never see these wonders of the world, but chances are, if you’ve spent any time in the Birmingham area, you’ve caught a glimpse of the city’s own contribution to stone masonry’s history. In fact, that is the driving force behind William & Carrigan Stone Masons. “I envision us as being a part of the building craft that has been around for thousands of years,” owner David Carrigan says. “We can still see that story in the way that the mason fit the stones together and crafted a wall. I see us being part of that story, part of that lineage.”
William & Carrigan is responsible for a slew of projects around the city, from the stone planters and columns in front of condominiums on Highland Avenue to the retaining walls and other structures at Ross Bridge Park.
A stroll through the Birmingham Botanical Gardens reveals many more, including a pathway project visualized by BBG Executive Director Fred Spicer that features Pennsylvania bluestone cut piece-by-piece by a William & Carrigan master mason. The company’s work also includes the columbarium at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church and the limestone exterior of the Walgreens on U.S. 280.
William & Carrigan’s history is both organic and fortuitous. Carrigan graduated from Samford University in 2001 with a degree in graphic design. He knew he didn’t want to sit behind a desk for 40 hours a week, so he started doing outdoor landscaping, a skill he acquired when he was a teenager. He started getting requests to do stone walls, and suddenly the higher purpose he sought was laid in front of him. “It really fit with me and my skill set,” Carrigan says. “Everything was visual and about spatial relations. Putting the pieces together of the stone is sort of like a three-dimensional puzzle. I just understood it, and it fit.”
Carrigan was soon out of the landscaping business all together, focusing solely on stone work. He started with a simple mission statement: “To strengthen and beautify communities with natural stone structures.”
He mixed the mortar and did everything himself for a year, at which point his brother became a partner. When his brother relocated, Carrigan bought his part of the company and kept growing the business on his own, doing mostly residential projects for homeowners.
Today, he employs three people at his office on Industrial Lane: an office manager, an estimator and project manager, and another who handles material delivery. He also employs two crews that vary from two to four people. When the economy was better, Carrigan says they would work with as many as 20 people, but he has had to scale back in the last year. The economy has also changed the type of jobs William & Carrigan sees. “We’ve always done some light commercial projects, but lately we’ve done a couple more of those than we used to,” he says. “We’ve also started to travel more and do a lot more jobs out of town.”
These days, the company is rarely hired directly by individual homeowners and, instead, works mainly with contractors. It’s part of a hierarchal chain in which the company works for higher-end homebuilders who work for an architect who works for the homeowner. Therefore, it’s vital for Carrigan to forge good relationships and enter competitive bids on jobs, which range from small, $2,000 building projects to projects that require months of work. Carrigan says his highest budget to date was half-a-million dollars.
“But we’re still very much a small company,” he assures. And while the economy has forced the business to make a few changes, there is one area Carrigan is emphatic will remain the same. “We have specifically decided not to pursue artificial stone and other building materials that we consider inferior,” he says.
“We strictly want to stick with natural stone and keep our name synonymous with a certain level of quality and longevity.”
