mill creek carpentry: the beginning

A few years ago, Andy Baldassar was a climbing teacher and guide with an ‘84 Volkswagon Vanagon, a climbing guide service and school in El Potrero Chico, Mexico, and most of his assets tied up in climbing gear.

And then he fell in love with a girl who lived in Leadville, Colorado. (That’s me.) He started spending his summers in Leadville, working on many of the second homes in the Leadville/Twin Lakes area and he even spent a spring learning the art of timber framing at Goshen Timber Frames. Eventually, he married the girl, sold the business in Mexico, and moved to Leadville full-time. He even sold the Vanagon.

But at some point, he started to worry about all the huge second homes he was building. Between global warming, rising fuel prices and mountaintop removal, he wondered if there would be anything left in a few years.

What if there was a company that could help people reduce energy use in their existing homes, help them remodel with eco-friendly options, and build small custom projects (everything from bookshelves to saunas) that would last forever?

…But were also affordable. (The former climbing guide and his girlfriend were not rich people either.) And of course, things made well from good materials will always be more expensive than mass-produced plywood. But surely, they thought, they don’t have to be absurdly overpriced.

So he and the girl put their heads together, figured out how to start a business, and enlisted the help of friends who knew about bookkeeping, small business management or the tax code. And they bought a lot of tools.

And so…Mill Creek Carpentry was born.

Tags: colorado, eco-remodeling, environment, green building, green remodeling