Carlos Rodriquez and Ben Hern stand by "Chandelier Row" at English Rose Antiques, at the Red Bank Furniture Emporium. These French and Italian chandeliers are from the 1910s to the 1940s. The two men have brought each one of them back to life with their unique chandelier-restoration talents.

Red Bank has long been known as a town with many doctors. Whatever your malady or ailment, chances are there are doctors or specialists of one kind or another in this town who can help fix you up again.

But, not everyone knows that Red Bank is also home to two of the most skilled and precise chandelier doctors to be found anywhere.

So, if your chandelier is looking a bit old or worn, or is flat-out on its last lamps, bring it over to English Rose Antiques at the Red Bank Furniture Emporium.

Let Ben Hern and Carlos Rodriquez, doctors of chandelier repair par excellence, take a look at the aging lamp. They'll restore it to its original magnificence in a way that will have you rubbing your eyes with astonishment.

Like surgeons over an operating table, Carlos Rodriquez and Ben Hern work on updating the wiring of an old chandelier, converting it from gas to electricity. All over the Red Bank area and throughout Monmouth County, chandeliers that have been operated on by "Doctors" Hern and Rodriquez are, both literally and figuratively, lighting up rooms - and serving as the primary conversation piece - in some of the most beautiful homes in the area.

Hern and Rodriquez's operating room is located at 197 Shrewsbury Ave. There, Hern and his wife, Nedi, of Holmdel, and Rodriquez, of Scotch Plains, buy and sell antiques and quality used furniture and work their wonders with chandelier restoration.

Whether the chandelier style is wrought iron, traditional, old world, crystal, Victorian or art deco, and no matter if the finish is brass, bronze, iron, copper, chrome or pewter, or if the chandelier is one, two or three-plus tiers, Hern and Rodriquez stand ready and able to breathe new life into old, worn-out chandeliers.

"We're a unique place, that's for sure," said Hern. "We restore old chandeliers to their original state by taking them apart, cleaning them up, rewiring them and sometimes, creating a new or different 'dressing' around the lighting.

"This all actually started as a hobby for me. I had always liked to play with lighting and when my wife and I semi-retired, we changed careers. We bought this building last October and, so far, everything has been going very well. In fact, we're having a ball."

The shop is full of restored, eye-catching chandeliers and various pieces of furniture, but the really intricate, tedious and time-consuming chandelier restoration work takes place in a workshop at the back of the store.

That's where Rodriquez takes old chandeliers apart and does the needed rewiring work, and where Hern takes care of the new dressing up of the piece. Then, together, they put the finishing touches on the reborn chandelier.

"We replace prisms and repin crystals and take care of the general cleanup and repairs," said Rodriquez. "When we're done, the chandelier is ready to hang in the house. It's not just good as new. It's often better than new!"

"Our motto," added Hern, "is that we don't sell anything that we're not willing to put in our own home."

A restored chandelier can cost as little as $300, or as much as $30,000.

"Price-wise," said Hern, "it really runs the gamut. We guarantee our work, and everything has been tested and retested before it leaves here. Our clients know that we only sell investment-grade chandeliers."

One-of-a-kind chandeliers are Hern and Rodriquez's specialty. They remember restoring a huge, three-tiered French Ormond chandelier that had 24 lights and measured 38 inches wide and 32 inches in length.

They have successfully done battle with an Italian chandelier from the 1930s that featured ornate, solid bronze griffins as its signature look. They have restored art deco chandeliers from the 1920s, Spanish chandeliers from the 1940s, and French chandeliers from way back in the 1870s.

They have restored Delph chandeliers, Dragon chandeliers, Maria Theresa chandeliers and Rococo chandeliers.

Though they are all as different from one another as they can be, they have one thing in common: They have each been given a second life, and restored to their original beauty, proving that - at least in the world of chandeliers - everything old can, indeed, become new again.

"We've sold about 110 chandeliers since we've been here," said Hern, "plus more than 80 sconces and table lights. We do a lot of rewiring work. Marrying new-world electric to an old-world look and often adding some extra touches can produce some great results."

Taking down a massive chandelier, layer-by-layer, and then restoring it, prism-by-prism, crystal-by-crystal and light-by-light, takes a lot of time. Often, rewiring, reassembling and even welding restoration work is necessary, making the process even more time-consuming.

"Depending on the amount of customization required, and, of course, the size of the chandelier, restoring one can take many weeks," said Hern.

Hern remembers working on a chandelier that was so huge that he and Carlos completed their work on it in a garage.

"Another chandelier that we worked on," said Rodriquez, "was 5 feet high and 4 feet across!"

Both also remember renovating 26 chandeliers for one home in Little Silver - including one huge chandelier that hung over the grand staircase and extended from the third floor down to the first floor.

"I still remember the look on the faces of those clients," said Hern. "They were positively beside themselves with happiness over how that restored chandelier looked when we finished it."

The Red Bank Furniture Emporium is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.