The smell of fresh sawdust fills a large warehouse in northeast Vancouver as workers put the pieces of custom doors together. Large doors ready for customization sit stacked in the warehouse, wrapped in plastic.
The new Liberty Door & Window opened for business about three weeks ago, aiming to fill what company partners say is a need for a custom and pre-hung door provider in Vancouver. Signs of the company’s infancy — construction on the front drive and a showroom yet to be built — are evident.
With decades of experience between them, finish carpenter J.R. Hunter; his father, Randy Hunter; longtime door salesman Felipe Hernandez; and his wife, Tammy Hernandez, saw an opportunity to build something from the ground up.
The partners leased the 12,300 square-foot space at 11006 N.E. 37th Circle, and they plan to create a showroom with window, door and lock displays where builders and homeowners can get inspiration to choose their custom windows and doors. By mid-June they hope to hold an opening celebration event.
And in 18 months to two years, the owners plans to add three to five employees to their current staff of five, including themselves.
The small business has been a dream for all of them.
J.R. Hunter had pleaded with his father for five years to go into business with him. Randy Hunter had 36 years’ experience in the pre-hung door business, including 33 years at Northwest Door & Supply in Tualatin, Ore.
Things began to fall into place six months ago, said Randy Hunter. He and his wife sold the home in Vancouver where they’d raised their four children and moved into their fifth-wheel camper on a relative’s property. Money from the sale of the home gave Randy Hunter the financial freedom to quit his job and begin launching the new business.
From that point forward, “everything just evolved,” J.R. Hunter said. The business partners invested their own money and secured loans to get the business off the ground.
Tammy Hernandez, the company’s bookeeper, said Liberty can compete with big-box stores such as Home Depot because of the individualized personal service it can offer.
“You don’t really get lost in the mix of a big company,” she said. “You deal with the same person all the time. It’s more personalized.”
The location is also key, the partners said.
“What better place to open up a door shop than a place that’s growing like this?” Felipe Hernandez asked. “There’s a lot of hope for the future, especially here in Vancouver.”
Felipe Hernandez thinks the convenience of a Vancouver location will draw local residents to the business. And J.R. Hunter said he knows firsthand from running his own former business, JRH Construction, that Clark County builders are in need of a local source for his new company’s products.
“I know what it’s like to be short one part that can hold up the whole project, and to have to go somewhere to get it,” he said. “Vancouver needs this.”
