Heritage Restoration, Inc: A family construction story approaching a century of success

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Ontario Construction News special feature

Heritage Restoration Inc. tells a story lasting almost a century โ€“ one where four family generations have carried on a thriving business, evolving through different eras, while retaining roots of craftsmanship and reasoning.

Vice-president Clay Huntley, who today shares the future leadership of the company with his brother Chris, says the organization operates now with two divisions โ€“ one handing challenging heritage projects, and the other (which he leads) that focuses on structural rehab, most often on newer buildings/infrastructure.

The business started in 1921 in Toronto when their great grandfather, Alfred A. Huntley, founded Huntley Chimney Service. Huntley soon expanded this residential chimney repair business by starting Huntley Steeple Jack Co., in 1926, to take on larger commercial rigging and rehabilitation projects.

The business continued through hard and good times, including the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war era. Alfred Huntley passed the business to his son Kenneth, who continued to grow the companies, eventually uniting them as Heritage Restoration Inc. in 1969. Kenneth passed the business on to his sons, Bruce and Alfred.

Now Bruceโ€™s sons are taking the helm of the business.

Clay Huntley says the organization has succeeded in part because of respect among family members and with the companyโ€™s staff, including several senior long-term employees.

โ€œChris and I have managed to make it work as brothers,โ€ Clay says. โ€œCommunication is huge thing for the two of us.

โ€œWe approach everything very logically, removing emotion from conversations and decisions, and weโ€™re very good friends. Itโ€™s very easy to run a business together when thereโ€™s a lot of mutual respect and everything is approached very logically.โ€

Huntley says that while growth is important, it is not a primary goal. The focus is on improving the overall organization as a whole, in order to continue to deliver a superior service for clients.

However, he says the company has the resources and experience to tackle the largest projects.ย  โ€œWe can take on almost anything in terms of the restoration world,โ€ he said.ย  โ€œThereโ€™s very few projects that are beyond us.โ€

So far, Heritage Restoration, Inc. has decided to focus its work in Ontario, especially the GTA.ย  The company has worked on projects from Windsor to Ottawa and as far north as Haileybury (Temiskaming Shores) in the provinceโ€™s northeast.

โ€œWe have toyed with idea of venturing outside Ontario, but thereโ€™s such a wide volume of work in the province that we never went ahead (elsewhere) because we decided we would do better staying closer to home,โ€ he said.

Future growth nationally of course is still possible โ€“ perhaps driven by demands from the companyโ€™s existing clients โ€“ but Huntley says the business has always taken a deliberative approach to growth. It isnโ€™t about โ€œbragging rightsโ€ but sustainability โ€“ managing the organization so that the work quality and volume can be handled responsibly and to clientsโ€™ satisfaction without stretching the companyโ€™s resources too far.

Growth plans in the short term including achieving Certificate of Recognition (CoR) safety recognition by the end of 2019, making Heritage one of only a few restoration companies to achieve the challenging standard.

โ€œOur main focus for the future is to continue to improve at what we do,โ€ Huntley said. โ€œWe have a fairly young management staff, and everyone collectively is doing great, but we have lots of room to improve as a whole.โ€

Huntley believes that the restoration market is booming, and he doesnโ€™t think it can continue forever at current levels. โ€œWhile I donโ€™t think the marketโ€™s going to tank,โ€ we must capitalize on the current conditions and โ€œuse the opportunity to become the absolutely best in the industry, insulating ourselves from potential adjustments in the market.โ€

โ€œWe want to scale our business, but we will only do so provided we keep in touch with the values that brought us to where we are.

โ€œOur focus comes back over and over again to building our teams of people, whether it be field staff crews or project management teams —ย  it is all predicated on the mentality: โ€˜Are they going to help us to deliver the best possible service in the best possible way?โ€™ This means taking care to ensure the โ€˜small stuffโ€™ is done right โ€“ so the bigger picture is achieved.โ€

โ€œIn this industry, there is always big huge gap between where you are and perfection.ย  Perfection is unattainable. Thereโ€™s no room for complacency. You always have something to do, something to improve on, itโ€™s all about doing what we have done, but better than weโ€™ve ever done it before.โ€

This is what lead to the vision to expand the companyโ€™s capacity beyond historical restoration and renovation into the โ€œstructural side of thingsโ€ โ€“ We wanted HRI to be able to offer complete restoration services for our clientโ€™s capital repair project needs, Huntley said.

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