Brianna Castelli
By the age of twenty, the closest Brianna Castelli had come to the stone craft was serving coffee to the mason who frequented the café where she worked in Philadelphia. Today, Castelli is a journeyman stone carver and mason at Washington National Cathedral, working to restore intricate stones damaged in the 2011 earthquake. Alongside her mentors, head stone mason Joe Alonso and carvers Sean Callahan and Andy Uhl, she joins a long legacy of skilled artisans who have crafted the Cathedral over the course of more than a century. “I’m shaping and setting stones with skills passed down through generations. The magnitude of it all constantly inspires me,” she says.
Born in California, Castelli did not encounter the trades until she moved to Philadelphia. “The word ‘stone mason’ had no meaning to me back home, growing up. I just wasn’t aware of it,” she says. Her chance encounter with a Philadelphia stone mason ignited her curiosity, passion, and especially her determination. “It inspired me to see someone who worked hard every day, and that you could work with your hands. It opened a door I didn’t know existed.” After a year’s worth of calls to the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC), the oldest continuous union of craftworkers in the country, she enrolled in the apprenticeship program offered by BAC Local 1 and its training partner, the International Masonry Institute.
During her apprenticeship, Castelli learned everything from pointing techniques to Dutchman repairs and found a spark in restoration and preservation work. For most of 2022, she worked on the restoration of the 200-year-old Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia under the guidance of skilled union stone carver and mason Jerry LeBlanc. “I don’t even have words for the support and the ability they have to teach and give you whatever you need,” Castelli says of her apprenticeship. Working on the Second Bank left a lasting impression. “At the very, very, top, towards this inside piece of stone, the old head mason carved his name, and the year it was built, and the architect’s name. And only we, people who are up in a scaffold, can see that. Just knowing that the work I put in is helping preserve somebody else’s, that feeling, there’s nothing like it.”
Though many on the outside may find stone masonry to be a daunting world, Castelli has found nothing but encouragement. “You find your good people, and they just lift you up,” she says. “I am really grateful for the people who see someone so passionate and give their all.” Upon finishing her apprenticeship, Castelli became the first female stone mason and carver at Washington National Cathedral in 2024. “I feel so lucky,” she says. “Sean, Andy, and Joe started working at the Cathedral in the ’80s. They have all that time and knowledge. Now, we’re repairing and putting back stones that they originally put up.”
At the Cathedral, she carries forward the torch of her mentors and the great artisans who taught them, like master masons Billy Cleveland, Eddie Fall, and Alec Ewen; master stone carvers Vincent Palumbo and Roger Morigi; and many others. Inspired by the work of their hands, Castelli seeks even more carving experience. “It’s just something so delicate,” she says. “You can create it yourself and then also know how to set it. Man, it’s just so cool to me!”
For Castelli, much of her work involves actively learning new skills on the job. The Cathedral’s intricately ornamented fourteenth-century-Gothic-style and massive, load-bearing stones give carvers and masons a unique set of challenges. “In Philadelphia, the largest stone I worked with was maybe 150 pounds, versus here it is thousands. The scale is so much larger.”
As an act of physical remembrance, Castelli, Callahan, and Uhl faithfully carve new stones to match the style and handiwork of the carvers who came before them. “It’s hard to put into words, but everything feels so much bigger than me,” she says of her work. “Knowing that our creations will endure beyond our lifetimes fills me with a profound sense of pride.”
