Marchetti Pipes (Philip S. DeFant)

Marchetti Pipes is the name given to the pipes Philip S. DeFant makes one at a time on his bench in Michigan. The workshop never moved into mass production and has remained limited in number; under the same roof, DeFant has also taken on cleaning and restoration work for old pipes. The resulting style is generally described as a meeting of three currents: the American bench tradition, Italian sensitivity to form, and the flowing lines of the Danish School.

Origin of the Name

The brand carries not its founder's surname but a name the family brought from Italy. According to the story, the original spelling of the surname was Marchetti; after the family, working as stonemasons, emigrated to America and settled in the mining region of northern Michigan, it entered the records as Marketty. Sources diverge on which relative the name should be traced to: one account points to grandfather Philip Marketty, who mined iron in the town of Negaunee in Marquette County and also collected pipes, saying the brand was named in his memory; another account ties the name directly to the maiden name of DeFant's mother. The two accounts do not contradict each other: since the founder's own surname is DeFant, it would follow that the name Marketty came into the family through the maternal line.