Overnight Success Takes About 17 Years…
From Ordinary Beginnings…
People often ask Eric Morley, co-founder of Carolina Timberworks, how he got into timber framing. After all, he doesn’t look like a lumberjack, and doesn’t have the beard of an Amish framer. But life-changing events can happen anywhere and anytime. One morning Eric had a cup of coffee with a “sort of crazy” guy he knew, and the rest is history. Well, more or less….
From that conversation, Eric entered the world of timber framing via manufacturing. Together he and his coffee buddy set up a company, leased land, built a 12,000 sq. ft. timber frame shop, and started cutting frames under the roof – even before the slab was finished! From 1996 to 2003, Eric ran the shop, including importing and installing the third Hundegger K2 (German CNC automated joinery machine) in North America, which required two cranes to get in place. Then life took another turn, and he was fired from his own company. It’s a complicated story and deals not in timber framing but in his decision to do the right thing.
After a week of feeling sorry for himself, Eric turned a spare bedroom closet into an office, and wrote a business plan for Carolina Timberworks.
Building Relationships…
Carolina Timberworks wasn’t a one-man show, however: his friend and future partner Chris Miller came with him from his old company, one bank enthusiastically supported them, and – best of all – a mentor handed him his first order before the ink was dry on his business plan.
If Eric and Chris are the co-founders of Carolina Timberworks, that mentor, Greg Poole, is the founding client. Not only did Greg hire Eric and Chris to build a new timber frame porch, the footings of which they dug together by hand, he started bringing them new clients. Eric says it always felt like they were on the verge of failing, but then a new project would emerge to help keep them going and growing.
Investing in Our Craft…
From those humble beginnings, in Eric’s garage and a rented 10×10 storage unit, Carolina Timberworks grew steadily until 2006 when it became clear more space was required.
Eric’s mother was horrified at the building he found – a “unique fixer-upper” – but the price was right.
The Carolina Timberworks team started refurbishing the building in between jobs, incorporating finds from the Habitat for Humanity store, and eventually even paved the parking lot. As Eric says, “It’s not fancy, or timber frame, or anything. But we did what we could with what we had.”
That statement reflects some of the ethos of Carolina Timberworks: Craft and clients always come first, therefore what may appear to be a very ordinary building produces truly extraordinary timber frames. Eric often tells first-time visitors to the shop that they will be underwhelmed by the building, but impressed by the people and the work.
Adjusting to the Times…
In 2009, the recession caught up with Carolina Timberworks and sales fell dramatically. And in 2010, founding partner Chris Miller suffered a heart attack. When he recovered, he thought he should do something less stressful…so he sold his share of the business.
It seems like something good comes out of every bad experience…
Because of the recession’s effect on the housing market, there simply wasn’t enough business locally, so Eric decided to explore working further afield. He says that while the recession was bad, it was a true turning point for Carolina Timberworks, resulting in new opportunities up and down the eastern seaboard and exciting and interesting projects across the United States.
And Raising Extraordinary Timber Frames Today…
Today, thanks to the hard work of a great team, Carolina Timberworks owns three acres in Ashe County, North Carolina, where they plan to one day build a new timber frame shop. For now, they continue to craft hand-made timber frame and post and beam structures in their refurbished industrial building: they hand-cut each piece, pre-assemble the timber frame to ensure everything fits precisely, label every part, and disassemble it to deliver to the building site. The same craftspeople who built the frame travel with it to the site, and because they’ve had their hands on it every step of the way, they can safely and efficiently raise a beautiful timber frame. As always, the highest priority of the ordinary people of Carolina Timberworks is to do extraordinary work and exceed expectations in every aspect of what they do.
