SOUTHBRIDGE— Monaco Restorations Inc. is a finalist for a prestigious International Masonry Institute award for 2006, with an announcement on the citation expected in about three weeks, Paul Monaco, the company’s president and founder, said.

The Mill Street company is being considered for its restoration of the New York State Capitol’s 444-step staircase, which was built in the early 1900s.

Known as The Great Western Staircase and The Million Dollar Staircase, it is valued at more than $50 million and cost more than $1 million to construct.

About 600 stone carvers worked on the 119-foot-high staircase, engraving into its pillars the faces of Benjamin Franklin and Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson, as well as dozens of other important Americans.

A fire in 1911 left the masonry soiled and darkened by soot.

“Back then they had no means of cleaning it,” Mr. Monaco said.

The firm spent about a year restoring the staircase, completing the work in September. It was paid $3.5 million, Mr. Monaco said.

“We did research and found a product in Europe to clean it,” Mr. Monaco said. “It’s almost like a hot wax … and once it cures you peel it off.”

Mr. Monaco said the material was applied by large sprayers, then carefully removed with specially designed tools the company made for the project.

“It’s night and day,” Mr. Monaco said. “It went from a dirty staircase to the original.”

Monaco Restorations, which opened in 1989 and grew from a shed at Mr. Monaco’s home, is top-rated in historical masonry restoration by the Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management.

Other big projects the company has done include work on the Casa Del Mar Resort in Aruba and The Waves Mansion in Newport, R.I.

In Aruba, the hotel’s stone façade had deteriorated over the years from salt water and sun, and Monaco replicated some of the panels, looking in seven U.S. states to find the material. It also scraped and repainted other areas of the building.

In Newport, the firm restored the mansion’s all-marble deck, including balusters and railings. It also waterproofed the deck with a rubber membrane.

Monaco’s biggest local projects have been at Forbes Library in Northampton and the Department of Public Works building and Dinand Library at the College of the Holy Cross, both in Worcester.

Mr. Monaco said he is still motivated in part by being let go from a construction job 18 years ago.

“It was the sickest feeling, that I had failed my family and my kids,” said Mr. Monaco, 47, who lives in Woodstock.

After the setback, Mr. Monaco found work at Holy Cross. The second chance, along with being closer to religion, led him to a new mentality.

“Right then and there it was nothing but hard work,” he said.

Mr. Monaco said the company is meticulous about its work, and he deflects praise to his approximately 70 employees, who are based at a satellite office in Albany.“It’s not just Paul Monaco,” he said. “It’s the workers in the field. It’s the girls in the office. The office is just as important as the field, because of the amount of paperwork you go through. You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork. Your requisition gets sent back to you if the date is wrong. It gets thrown out.”

On the job site, Mr. Monaco said, “I treat it like the Marine Corps: very strict. I like things clean, organized, to perfection. When we leave that job site, it’s immaculate.”

“We like to do our work like it was being done for ourselves,” he said. “Act like it was your building.”

In Newburyport, Monaco restored the 156-year-old City Hall building, and a local official raved about the company’s work, which called for repointing the brick exterior with a lime-based mortar, and casting, carving and resetting numerous stones.

Mr. Monaco, along with the project design team, legislators and financers, received awards from Newburyport officials Feb. 8.

“I’ve worked with a number of contractors over the years, and they were definitely a good one to have on our team, both in terms of being the significant low bid, but also in terms of good quality work, good attitude, responsiveness and all the rest,” said Geordie Vining, senior project manager for Newburyport’s planning office.

Mr. Vining said the $1.6 million design and renovation was badly needed because “people could just sort of pull out brick with their hand, that was just sitting there from gravity.”

Mr. Monaco, whose daughter Elizabeth is the company’s controller, said he has surrounded himself with a business-smart staff. They set a balance for Mr. Monaco’s lofty ambitions.

“Paul has no fear and just goes for it,” said Vice President Richard C. Taylor.

In the end, Mr. Taylor said, laughing, “I usually just do what he says.”

The company also has made a number of local charitable contributions. At Mr. Monaco’s alma mater, Bay Path Regional Vocational Technical High School in Charlton, it renovated the interior of the gymnasium and installed sports murals on the walls.

The firm also donated varsity basketball warm-up suits and uniforms for the school, and last year took two busloads of masonry students to Albany for a bird’s-eye view of the company’s work.

At the Southbridge Police Department, Monaco donated and installed office partitions; also in Southbridge, the company removed basketball goals from Notre Dame Parish hall and reinstalled them at the former National Guard Armory.

60 Mill Street Southbridge, Massachusetts 01550