$$$$$

Hahaha! No doubt!

These are prohibitively expensive. The rock itself is durable, but it is sealed with enamel which can become problematic over time. My impression is that this material is more often used in what would be a show kitchen in situations where an alternative working kitchen is located elsewhere in the estate.

We have 20 year old lava stone countertops from Pyrolave. They hold up amazingly well. They have dulled over time--not shiny--but I would not have noticed had I not seen a new sample of it. You can go through the US pyrolave dealers. I think it is about $260 per sq ft base price.

Thank you bethy015!

I would love to have Pyrolave countertops b/c there's a particular color I'd like to do, but I can find no one who can or will template and install these (I'm at the ocean in central CA). The US sales rep could not help. My guess is that Pyrolave has enough business in Europe and NY/LA/SF that they don't really need to build out their network of installers elsewhere. Countertop companies in my area have told me that they make their $ in the fabrication, and that the little amount they can charge for templating and installing a product that they can't modify if the measurements are off is not worth it for them.

For anyone else reading this thread, I have two fairly large countertops and the cost I was quoted was around $22-25K, with $2500 or so of that being shipping charges. The equivalent quartz countertops in my area would be $18-20K.

Also, I was in contact with Ranieri Lavastone in Italy and they are a tiny bit less in cost, BUT they can only do colors on the RAL chart and the only installer in my area has no experience templating- which to me is that most important part.