Apex Glass —

A Good Reputation Near And Far

By Kaaren Valenta

Newtown residents who need a piece of glass for a picture frame or a new pane for a window usually show up at Apex Glass & Aluminum Products in Sandy Hook. Owner Frank Pitrone is usually there, helping with each request, no matter how small.

But what most local customers don’t know is that the 40-year-old business is one of Fairfield County’s leading glass companies, performing custom work for clients as far away as the New York City and the Hamptons on Long Island and north to Massachusetts.

“Apex is almost two businesses,” Mr Pitrone said. “There’s the one that many in town know because of their little projects, and then there’s the Apex Glass that the rest of the world knows.”

Apex was founded by Frank Pitrone’s father, Frank Sr who came to Connecticut in 1959 as a sales representative for R.B. Wyatt, a custom shower door manufacturer in New York City.

“I was in first grade at Hawley School when we moved here,” Frank Jr recalled. “My father’s territory was all of Fairfield County, but even then property in towns like Darien, Greenwich, and Stamford was expensive. Someone told him about Newtown and we wound up here, although most of the work was in lower Fairfield County. Newtown was a very small town then.”

When the company decided to leave Connecticut three years later, Frank Sr decided to stay, start his own business, and buy the doors from his former employer. Before long he added patio doors and storm products to the store’s line. When clients asked him to include mirrors, the conversion to other glass services became a natural addition. By 1967 he was totally committed to becoming a full-line glass shop. Apex now specializes in a large range of glass products and services including framed and frameless shower doors, custom mirrors, storm windows and storm doors, custom skylight systems, residential entry doors, commercial storefronts, solariums, vinyl and aluminum replacement windows, awnings, polished glass and mirrors, glass tabletops, screens (from repairs to porch enclosures), and plastics (Plexiglas and Lexan). 

 “Until the mid-80s, when a big franchise moved in, Apex did 75 percent of the shower doors in Fairfield County,” Frank Jr said. “I still get my share but a lot of what we do more of now is high-end custom work and a lot of projects that aren’t run of the mill. Most of our work is for remodelers, whose primary interest is quality. It’s a different world from [new home] contractors, who are interested in getting the job done as cheaply as possible.”

Frank was about 14 when he started helping his father in the business. After school he tried a few other jobs, but by the time he was 21 he was back working full-time for Apex.

In 1992, after 30 years, Frank Sr retired, turning the business over to his son. The staff now includes Steve Barna, who has worked for the company for 23 years, Rich Guman, and Rick Kasbarian, plus Frank Jr’s wife, Linda, and receptionist Tricia Cianci. There is also a three-year-old black Newfoundland, Maggie, who likes to chase light rays outside the front door.

“Rich does all the sales and estimating for the local area and I pretty much focus on the outside area,” Frank Jr said. “Tricia is more than a receptionist – she’s my number one assistant – but she has been taking time off because she recently had a baby.”

Two years ago Frank Jr decided that the company had rented space long enough on Church Hill Road and it was time to buy their own building. He bought the old Sandy Hook schoolhouse at 10 Riverside Road.

“The building was built in 1899,” Mr Pitrone said. “It’s been a school, a glove factory, a Knights of Columbus hall, a deli, and now a glass shop. It’s a neat building. When I was crawling around up in the attic to add electrical lines, I saw all the hand-hewn beams. The building is as solid as a rock.”

The front of the building was completely renovated as a large showroom, a handicapped restroom was installed, and a firewall was built to separate the showroom from the work rear. The building’s original windows, which had been removed in a previous renovation, were replaced. The rear of the building, most recently a deli operation, became a workroom. Then a 1,000 square-foot addition with an 11-foot-high ceiling was constructed at the back.

In the middle of the rear workroom is a 10 by 12-foot tilt table, counterbalanced with cement, on which pieces of glass up to 8 by 10 feet are placed to be cut. “It weighs about as much as a Volkswagen,” Mr Pitrone said. “When I bought it in an auction 15 years ago, it was in a huge warehouse and I didn’t really realize how big the table was until I rented a truck and went to pick it up. They used a crane to put it in the back along with four A-frames. Driving home was one of the scariest rides of my life.”

Among Apex’s recent projects was restoration of a huge, multi-pane skylight in one of the artist studios at Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton. “We also replace the glass in the flight tower at Sikorsky Airport every few years,” Mr Pitrone said. The last two summers he has been involved in renovating houses in the Hamptons.

“I’m usually gone all week but I’m almost always here [in the store] on Saturday mornings,” Mr Pitrone said. “That’s when all the do-it-yourselfers come in to see me.”

Apex Glass is open six days a week: 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday; and 9 am to 1 pm on Saturdays. For more information call 426-4475.