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A Gentleman of Considerable Layers

On the Painter Who Restores History, Builds Empires & Prefers the Company of Freshwater Fish

Dear gentle reader,

Your correspondent has long maintained that the most fascinating members of any community are not those who shout the loudest from the grandest stages, but those who quietly, methodically, and with great deliberateness, build something that endures. It is in that spirit that we turn our discerning gaze this week to one Mr. Nick Slavik of New Prague — painter, restorer, philosopher, and, it must be said, a man who has made peace with a brush in the most remarkable fashion.

Mr. Slavik presides over not one enterprise but several, each bearing the unmistakable imprint of a mind that does not rest easily. There is Nick Slavik Painting & Restoration Co., which handles interior and exterior painting for both residential and commercial clients — though to call it merely a painting company would be rather like calling the great cathedrals of Europe merely buildings. The firm specializes in historic restoration and, as Mr. Slavik puts it with characteristic directness, the big, scary, complicated projects that others cannot or will not do. One immediately understands that this is not a man who is moved by the straightforward.

The big, scary, complicated projects that others cannot or will not do. One immediately understands that this is not a man who is moved by the straightforward.

Beyond the paint and plaster, he operates Ask a Painter Live — a venture that extends his expertise into the broader public conversation — and Nightingale Holdings, the enterprise beneath which his various ambitions are gathered. Your correspondent finds the name Nightingale a most apt choice for a man who, as we shall discover, is rather quieter than his considerable accomplishments might suggest.

For Mr. Slavik, by his own candid admission, is an introvert. He is, he says, a recovering passive aggressive human — a confession delivered with the sort of self-awareness that one finds rather more refreshing than the polished performances of those who claim no flaws whatsoever. He questions everything. He reasons from first principles. He acts fast, loves to create, and is, at his very core, deeply introspective. He loves nature with the quiet devotion of a man who has spent considerable time in it and found it more honest than most drawing rooms.

The origin of this empire, such as it is, will delight those who appreciate a story of transformation. Mr. Slavik did not choose painting — painting was chosen for him, by his father, at the age of ten. He hated it. Completely, thoroughly, one suspects with the particular ferocity that only a conscripted ten-year-old can muster. And yet — here is where the story turns — he now cannot love it more. The difference, he will tell you, is choice. To be forced to do a thing is one matter entirely. To choose it, freely and fully, is another. He chose it, and in doing so, made it his.

To be forced to do a thing is one matter entirely. To choose it, freely and fully, is another.

What drives him is not, one finds, the accumulation of wealth for its own sake — though he is plainly not indifferent to prosperity. What drives Mr. Slavik is a philosophy he describes with the clarity of a man who has thought it through many times: he wishes to be a transitional character in the lives of his family, to provide surplus value to all of his people, and to build what he calls freedom machines — enterprises that deliver time and money freedom to those who share his core values. He speaks of servant leadership not as a corporate buzzword but as a genuine vocation. One believes him.

At home, he is attended by his wife Tootse, four children, and two Brittany Spaniels — a domestic arrangement that sounds, to your correspondent's ear, like precisely the right amount of cheerful chaos for a man who restores order to crumbling historic structures by day.

And what of his leisure hours? Do not look for Mr. Slavik at the fashionable tables or the well-appointed lounges — though he is, it should be noted, a devoted patron of New Prague's local establishments, rotating through them each Thursday with his company's leadership team for what he has dubbed the Boss Lunch. Every establishment, he reports, has earned a favorite food or drink in his personal ledger. This is a man who takes his community seriously.

But when the week releases him entirely, you will find him on his farm, or wandering the thousands of acres of state land surrounding New Prague that the public may freely access — and that almost no one does. This is a matter of some gentle bewilderment to Mr. Slavik: pure nature, open to all, largely ignored. He goes there alone, or near enough to it, and one imagines he is perfectly content.

Pure nature, open to all, largely ignored.
He goes there, and one imagines he is perfectly content.

Had fate dealt a different hand — had the father not pressed the brush into the ten-year-old's reluctant grip — Mr. Slavik says he would have devoted his life to freshwater fish research, or to the scientific study of nature and habitat. Your correspondent notes that both paths, painting and ecology, require the same essential quality: the patience to observe what others overlook, and the skill to preserve what others neglect.

He closes with a word about New Prague itself — and it is, one must say, rather moving in its plainness. This is a special place, he says. People can take for granted the remarkable business ecosystem here — the food, the retail, the services, a main street that rarely sees a vacancy. People support their local businesses. It is, he says simply, why he lives here. Your correspondent, for one, finds that a most sufficient reason.

Nick Slavik Painting & Restoration Co., Ask a Painter Live, and Nightingale Holdings may be explored by any member of society with a historic wall in need of attention, a complicated project no one else will touch, or simply a curiosity about what a man of considerable depth gets up to with a brush and a very long ladder.

Your correspondent remains, as always, watching — and this week, rather inspired.

— A Lady Who Knows a Good Restoration When She Sees One