When I take something apart, I see where other people have worked on it, fixed it, made measurements and notes… people who aren’t around anymore. He speaks respectfully and poignantly about his connection to the people who built and used the old equipment he’s brought back to life. Robert is an alumnus of Trinity University, a master blacksmith, an excellent cook and something of a philosopher, too. They couldn’t imagine that a piece of equipment as big as a car could be made of solid bronze.

And he discovered a secret beneath decades of paint, dirt and grease: solid bronze. Robert made them with parts from circa-1940 bottle-filling equipment, which he salvaged from Pearl’s warehouse. The charming silk-swagged elephant identifying Hotel Emma’s Elephant Cellar.Ībout those Elephant Cellar chandeliers. The elegant “pandelier” light fixture (made entirely of skillets) at the original entrance to Pearl’s Culinary Institute of America. The individually-crafted numbers on guestroom doors. Sternewirth’s huge circular light fixture, made from bottling machinery. The evidence of that joy is everywhere in the hotel and around Pearl. Robert Diaz de Leon is a metal craftsman who admits to being a workaholic because of the joy he finds in his work. “I’ve always been a maker - the process of solving problems and putting things together makes me happy.” ballroom chandeliers from repurposed bottling equipment. This is a man in love with making things, whether it’s baking from-scratch pizza in the wood-burning oven he built in his backyard, fashioning brass label frames for the hotel’s library, or creating 3,000-lb.

“Blacksmithing in July in South Texas: you just drink lots of water and suffer.

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