Gene Marrano photos
Still able to “Astonish” after all these years By Gene Marrano The art of conservation and restoration never seems to go out of style for Astonish Antique Restoration in Southwest Roanoke County. From their long-time home on Starkey Road to a shared space with a North Carolina furniture company (Davidson Home) in the Commonwealth Drive industrial park over the past year-plus, Astonish has been doing architectural restoration, touch-ups and repairs for about 15 years. Heirloom furniture, beloved family and historical artifacts are its principal concerns; restoring/ refreshing furniture damaged during moving (insurance claims work) or used in commercial environments (Hotel Roanoke, Virginia Tech, etc.) also helps keep the small staff at Astonish busy. Finishing work for a cabinet maker is also part of the mix. Even heavily used doors needing touchup – often onsite. Marshall Young is now the company president; he’s been with Astonish
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for about a decade and the owner for the past two years. His father and grandfather both had woodworking shops in their basements, so this line of work came naturally. He managed a coffee shop at one point and then set up his own home shop. “That’s when I started making guitars,” says Young, something he still does. Young went on to build custom houses locally and at Smith Mountain Lake with a group of German Baptists. “A lot of woodworking involved with that,” he noted during a recent tour of the Astonish shop, with Bruce Soujanen doing some repair work and David Crouch staffing the spray booth. An old 50’s era panel van driven around by the original Astonish owner Dick Patch caught his attention: “I thought
