Hand-crafted shutters adorning prominent buildings and homes throughout the U.S.

Rick Skidmore is the CEO and founder of Timberlane Shutters. Since 1995, Timberlane has furnished its customers’ homes and business buildings with built-to-order, hand-crafted exterior shutters and hand-forged hardware. The company has created shutters for prestigious clients such as the White House, Disney, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and its products are favorites among set designers for major Hollywood motion pictures. Timberlane has been featured on PBS, ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Curb Appeal, P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home, and Katie Brown Workshop. Aside from leading Timberlane, Rick is also the bestselling author of Smart Business Growth: 12 Case Studies on Ways to Grow Your Business in a Timely, Yet Prudent Way, for Small Businesses.

EDWIN WARFIELD: Tell us about founding Timberlane.

RICK SKIDMORE: I started my career in the insurance industry and was pretty successful at that but always knew that my calling was to be more entrepreneurial and do something on my own. I wasn’t really sure what that was going to be.

I was restoring an old home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1990 I believe, and it had a bunch of old shutters. The shutters were falling apart. I knew at some point, when I was close to the end of my restoration, I was going to make the shutters myself. When that time came, I went looking for a company that built the shutters that most people would buy from but I couldn’t find anybody.

That was the first moment when the lightbulb went off and I said, “Well, I’m unhappy in my corporate job. I know how to build a brand.” I was just very lightly into woodworking as a hobby and I figured, “You know what? I can do this.” That was the origin on how I came up with the idea and started the business.

Q. How much has the business grown over the years?

A. I started in a very small space, the way most new businesses do. I started in a very small shop, 1000–1500 square feet, and it was really just me. Then I hired one employee and then it was time for a second employee and then time for a third employee—and, you know, we grew very fast. Our current facility is around 80,000 square feet. It’s in Montgomery County. We have about 75 full-time employees today.

Q. Can you share some of your experience working with high-profile clients like Disney and the National Trust for Historic Preservation?

A. Timberlane has done some really high profile projects, everything from movies to National Trust properties and historic landmarks around the country. There’s a very historical component to shutters. They tend to be on older structures—traditional, neoclassical properties where there’s a lot of awareness around preservation and putting or replacing things like doors and windows with what would have been there originally. That’s really our sweet spot. That’s what we do: we understand that space very, very well.

Over time, we’ve developed a reputation and a very strong brand in not only the historic space but also little niches. We do an awful lot of movie set work. Whether it’s MGM or Universal or Disney—we’ve done a ton of work with Disney World and MGM—any time there’s a project, when there’s an old home and it needs shutters, typically we’re called upon. Most recently we did Winterthur, outside of Wilmington, which is the original Du Pont estate that had about 600 windows. That was a large project. We’ve developed a reputation for understanding the special needs of historically sensitive projects.

Q. What is it about your process that caused the National Trust to consider you a go-to partner?

A. We have an ability to replicate and reproduce shutters down to the smallest detail, including the hardware that goes with it, and as a result of that over time we’ve developed an informal partnership with the National Trust. Any time there’s a project, we’re typically called upon to either consult, or in most cases, end up providing the shutters for those projects.

Connect with Rick on LinkedIn

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