Bevolo Gas & Electric Lights - A History Of Tradition and Preservation
It began with a challenge.
“If you can draw it, I can make it.”
Andrew Bevolo Sr. arrived in America from Northern Italy and found work at the Ford Motor Company, Higgins Industries - most famous for the amphibious landing craft used in the Allied forces’ D-Day Invasion of Normandy, and the Sikorsky Engineering Corporation, founded by another immigrant - Igor Sikorsky from Russia - and one of the first companies to design and manufacture helicopters for civilian and military use.
Working for three iconic industrial manufacturing companies gave Bevolo the knowledge that shaped his interest and ability to become a highly skilled craftsman. In 1945 he established Bevolo Metal Crafts in the French Quarter, which evolved into a lighting business that included the restoration and reconditioning of many original London gas streetlights damaged during WWll. Applying his experience from Sikorsky and Higgins he replaced the original soldered connections with rivets. Bevolo’s use of aviation rivets became his first historic contribution to gas lighting.
In the early 1960s, the young Louisiana architect, A. Hays Town, when walking the streets of the French Quarter in search of a light fixture to enhance one of his designs, was drawn to the sounds from Bevolo’s shop. Approaching Bevolo, he asked if he could make a custom light fixture. Bevolo’s confident response, If you can draw it, I can make it, birthed his second historic contribution to gas lighting - the original French Quarter Lantern.
Today, Andrew “Drew” Bevolo lll, the third-generation owner of the original metal shop, and his son, Chris Bevolo, continue manufacturing the highest quality traditional and custom handmade lanterns by modern-day coppersmiths under the family name Bevolo Gas & Electric Lights.
The quality starts with the materials, using the highest-grade copper sourced from Revere Copper Products - a company founded in 1801 by the Revolutionary War hero, Paul Revere and the first American to roll copper into sheets successfully. And continues with innovation, using the patented batwing burner which delivers the most efficient open-flame lighting. And, of course, the hand rivets!
Bevolo’s designs have expanded to over 500 lantern and bracket combinations of both open-flame and electric copper lanterns since his first collaboration with A. Hays Town. In 2018, the company was a proud recipient of the Made in America award at the White House in Washington, D.C. Still exclusively manufactured in Louisiana with four showrooms, the Exchange Alley workshop and a museum located in the heart of the French Quarter, Bevolo lanterns have found homes in 50 states and 67 countries.
This year, Bevolo celebrates its 78th anniversary. While keeping an eye on current trends, it continues to celebrate classic design and the timeless elegance of lighting handcrafted to last a lifetime.