Carl Becker and Son, Ltd

Paul Becker seems to me to be an outstanding, honest craftsman with a big ego and poor bedside manner. Many years ago I practically had to beg him to make a bridge for my modest instrument over his insults directed at the instrument and extremely high quotes engineered to try and scare me away. (Carl Becker bridges are renowned — my violin teacher in Houston would talk lovingly of her own Becker bridge when I was a kid, and I really wanted one.) He did a fantastic job (and charged a fair price for his labor, less than he quoted), and I’m still wowed by the Becker bridge that has adorned that instrument for most of the last decade. He did similarly excellent work replacing the pegs in my instrument a few years after that.
Finally, I had a bad crack in my instrument’s soundboard at the saddle in line with the bass bar. In this final case, he finally refused outright to do the work. To his credit, in this last case, he solicitously referred me to a lower-​brow violin shop in the suburbs (Kenneth Stein Violins in Elmhurst). Kenneth did a very competent and very affordable job fixing the crack the cheap way (from the outside, without taking the top off), and I was back in the running with a violin that sounded and (almost) looked like it had never cracked. Clearly Paul’s gruffness was not malicious but more protective of his time and his reputation for extremely high-​end violinmaking. The referral seemed on-​point to me.
Basically, Carl Becker and Son is five stars for the world-​renowned work, minus one for the drama. I’d wholeheartedly recommend Paul Becker’s repair and tonal adjustment work for an instrument valued at five figures or higher. You might still need some people skills to work with him, though.