Davis Monuments opens today in Elizabeth Township

A grand opening for the new location will take place starting at 10 a.m.

A new location for Davis Monuments will open today in Elizabeth Township this weekend.

At 10 a.m. the family- owned business based in Scottdale, Pa., will open its new location to the public at Swiss Alpine Village, 275 Swiss Way.

The opening will feature bakery items and coffee from Central Coffee Shoppe.

“We hope that the community will welcome them,” Elizabeth Township Manager Tammy Firda said. “That’s the kind of thing we want to see is new businesses coming into our community. It makes a great difference.”

Hours of operation will be 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. Appointments can be made for evenings and Sundays.

The business was founded in 1913 by George Davis and is owned by president Thomas “Ralph” Ermine and his son, vice president Zane Ermine, who is Davis’ great-grandson. They have been providing memorials for grave sites for people across Southwestern Pennsylvania over 110 years.

Ralph has been the owner since 2000 after taking over for his parents, Judy and Tom Ermine, who ran the business since 1967. George’s son, H. Von Davis, took over operations in 1953, and Zane has been on and off with the company since graduating high school in 2008.

Zane and his wife Kelsey will be taking over the business when they start installation and production for this year because Ralph is in the process of retiring.

“I don’t know how the actual ownership of the company is going to go yet. That is something we still need to figure out,” Zane said. “(Ralph) has been teaching me things here and there about how to run the business. I’ve been in it forever, I understand how to do it, but I’m not sure about juggling everything.”

It was the couple’s idea to open the new location, and Kelsey will run the Elizabeth Township store since it is close to where they live and she is from the area. Customers may be greeted by their dog, Bowie, and the couple has a 1-year-old child.

“I think being involved with the community is important,” Kelsey said. “We feel there aren’t a lot of options in this area, and there is affordability here.”

She started with the business in 2023 after she and Zane moved back to the area from Owings Mills, Md. She also made the company’s website.

“Zane’s grandfather passed (in 2022), and that’s when talks really started happening about either selling the business or Zane taking over,” Kelsey said. “It wasn’t the same (down there), and we missed home. I did not find a job anywhere, and that’s how I ended up at Davis Monuments.

“I’m actually kind of sad because I am going to be running this location and he is pretty much going to be staying at Scottdale.”

The Elizabeth Township location is the business’ first new location in over 30 years, and Zane said they decided to open it to better serve the wider area. They also have a location in Connellsville and Smithfield and have a display at Ferguson Funeral Home in Belle Vernon with over 10 employees across all the stores.

They have also installed stones all over the region, and have also installed as far east as Bedford, as far north as Armstrong County, and also into Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio.

The business also sells things for cremations, pet memorials, memorial tags, cleaning grave stones with touch ups, bronze plates and more, and they try very hard to work within everybody’s budget. The lowest price is pet markers around $400, and the most expensive monument in their showroom is $14,000.

Kelsey said she does not want people to think their prices are lower because they are getting inferior stones, but rather, they are doing a lot of their own work so they don’t have to hire out.

“I always tell people that we can pretty much put whatever they want on a stone as long as it’s not too small,” Zane said. “I think that’s one of the things that has always kind of benefited us. I think DAVIS MONUMENTS • A5 Village.

we have very good customer service.”

The couple has seen a shift over the years in memorials, and they try to make things work for everyone.

Their busy season has shifted to the fall and spring, as there is more of a focus on anniversaries and birthdays. There are more cremations and pet memorials as well.

They are a full-service monument company, which Zane said is part of what makes them unique.

Besides stones in different colors and shapes from a variety of countries and states, they have specialized techniques of putting the monuments together and do a lot of the work themselves.

“I can’t speak for this area, but in our area of Scottdale and Uniontown, I think we are one of the only companies that still does sandblasting (designs) in house,” Zane said. “It is something we have been really trying to lean on because a lot of times we do 25 designs for a customer, and I think a lot of those monument companies don’t have the ability to do that because they aren’t doing it in house.”

The company has been in the same family for five generations, according to Zane. They pride themselves on providing compassionate and personalized service while representing all faiths.

“Death is such a unique experience to deal with because there are certain things that I don’t feel right charging somebody or if people aren’t paying,” Kelsey said. “It gets tricky with grief. Everything is so expensive right now, and we try to be very empathetic and understanding.”

People usually come several months into the grieving process, they try to adjust to requests and they try to encourage people to preplan what they would like on their stones, according to Kelsey.

They try to go through the complex process with empathy and compassion.

“Death is inevitable. People don’t usually think about death until they have to, and then they deal with it,” Zane said. “That’s something we kind of want to lean into because I think it’s kind of an untapped market, especially at our age.

“In general, we try to work with people. Whenever they give us a hard time, we try really hard to put ourselves in their shoes.”

Anyone wanting more information can call the Elizabeth office at 412-896-1538, send an email to davismonumentsinc@ gmail.com or go to the website at davismonumentsinc. com.