Austin Wood Works, Inc. • Leander
Austin Wood Works, Inc. • Leander
By Kara Vaught Friday, 19 December 2008
Steve and Lecia Ellis spent 28 years building their custom cabinetry and door business from an 1,800 sq. ft. warehouse on Shady Lane in Austin to a 40,000 sq. ft. facility on FM 2243.
On Feb. 19, another company was installing a vent in the Ellis’ building. A tool threw a spark and ignited a fire that incinerated a portion of the shop and left all its contents charred, melted or covered in rust: a total loss.
“If someone had asked me at the time, I would have said there was no way we could recover,” Lecia said. “People still tell us they thought we went out of business.”
But Austin Wood Works, Inc. is open and operational.
Pending the final insurance settlement, the Ellises are working in a facility on Leander Drive with a fraction of the 93 employees they had before the fire. At that time, Austin Wood Works supplied cabinets and doors to homeowners and builders, including a large production homebuilder with communities in the Austin and San Antonio areas.
“A lot of [our customers] just had to find someone else,” Steve said. “We tried to fulfill some orders, but a lot of them we just couldn’t.”
Lecia and Steve kept everyone on the payroll for two or three weeks until they realized the insurance company’s investigation and settlement was going to be an extended process.
“The hardest part of the whole thing was walking out and telling our people, ‘No, we can’t fix it; it’s not going to be quick,’” Lecia said. “We had to let 70 people go, which was pretty tough on us. We had a lot of people who had been with us 10 years or more.”
The blessing, Steve said, was only two people were in the building at the time of the fire, and both got out safely.
“I can’t say enough about the firefighters,” Steve said. “They got it under control quickly and stayed there a long time.”
After the fire, Lecia, Steve and their remaining team of about 22 people began rebuilding their business base. Within four weeks, Austin Wood Works was producing cabinets, but without the modern machines that were destroyed.
“It was the old school way of doing it,” Lecia said. “We stayed in that mode until June 1, when we occupied [the facility on Leander Drive] and purchased two pieces of equipment.”
Steve estimates the business is now at 25 percent of what it was before the fire. He and Lecia plan to reopen their shop on FM 2243 in June. Nothing on that property can be touched until the insurance investigation is complete. After that, the building will be razed and rebuilt.
Steve and Lecia now focus on remodels and custom homes rather than production.
“We measure, design, build, install and maintain high-end residential kitchens, libraries, family rooms — whatever you want — from here to San Antonio,” Steve said. “Everything is custom; you’re not going to get something out of a box.”
Austin Wood Works, Inc., 1306 Leander Drive, 259-3373
