Don-Lou

Don-Lou is the brand of handmade pipes American maker Dominic Cazzetta produced in his small shop on Bath Avenue, in Brooklyn's Bensonhurst neighborhood. The maker's surname appears in sources both as Cazzetta and Cazetta; which of the two forms is correct has not been established by an independent record.

The brand name comes from a combination of the maker's shortened name and that of his son, Lou. Production never grew to factory scale and remained a one-man business from start to finish; for this reason, the pieces that survive today are relatively few.

The Maker's Path

What is known of Cazzetta's professional background rests largely on his own account in a 1977 magazine interview; this account has not been confirmed by a second source. According to it, the maker began the trade in his youth at a small workshop near where he lived in Williamsburg, starting with the lowest-rung tasks such as staining and scraping off excess putty. The workshop in question is said to have been known as Jobey. By the same account, he later worked as a rougher for the leading American manufacturers of the era — Kaywoodie, Medico, and the William Demuth Company. This is the first and most decisive stage where the pipe blank is cut from the block; the background to the speed the maker displayed at his own bench is also traced to these factory years. The interview's only time reference is his statement in 1977 that he had been in the trade for forty-five years; when the workshop opened does not appear in the records.