It was time for Lyndon Heath Cabinetry to fly the coop.
The high-end, residential custom cabinetry firm had been operating out of a converted chicken coop in Lititz, which was packed to the rafters and limiting the size of jobs that could be completed.
So early this year, company owner Lyndon Sentz got his business a new home that quadruples the amount of available space, and is now aiming to double both the number of employees and the firm’s yearly sales.
Sentz, 35, said he began looking to relocate last November with Realtor Dan Berger of U.S. Commercial Realty, and initially had been disappointed with what was available.
But soon Berger found a property at 211 Reading Road in East Earl Township, which was then home to Phoenix Woodworking.
Phoenix Woodworking closed; Lyndon Heath Cabinetry acquired the building in February for $875,000, according to courthouse records.
“Then, the real work began,” he said.
The 18,000-square-foot building had both office space and a workshop — a big improvement over the 4,500-square-foot coop — but much cleaning and renovation needed to take place.
Dust as deep as six inches coated every surface.
“We had a crew of three people doing nothing but vacuuming out the dust,” Sentz said.
Lyndon Heath employees spent two months just cleaning up the workshop, but the office space also needed to be gutted for what employees envisioned when they began relocating in spring.
Between construction and new equipment, Lyndon Heath has invested about $250,000 in improving the property, Sentz said, with plans for the renovations to be complete by early 2018.
In addition to having all the office and workshop employees in one space for the first time, the sheer size of the new digs means better work flow, Sentz said.
“Before we handled each cabinet multiple times, stacking and restacking,” he said. “Now we have more space, we’re able to take a cabinet, and once it’s built, it doesn’t leave the cart. That’s just a huge timesaver.”
The building has three finishing rooms, as well as loading docks and a big storage bay, all humidity-controlled.
Optimistic outlook
Sales for Lyndon Heath grew 40 percent last year — Sentz declined to supply exact dollar figures — and that was with all the time and attention that were devoted to the move. He hopes the new location will allow sales to double.
Sentz (Heath is his middle name) started the business in 2005. A native of Houghton, New York, Sentz had come to Lancaster to attend Lancaster Bible College. To pay tuition, he began working at a local cabinet shop, which has since gone out of business.
“It was perfect for me because it gave me a ton of experience really quickly,” Sentz said.
He met his future wife at the school, and after graduating launched the eponymous business out of a barn on the Lititz property where they lived.
For the initial five or six years, Lyndon Heath was a one-man show. “The first person I hired was the person who used to be my boss at the first cabinet shop I started with,” Sentz said.
The company now has 12 employees, with plans to eventually bring that to 22, Sentz said.
What has enabled the firm’s growth? Sentz said his company has found a niche in the high-end custom cabinetry market.
On one hand, there are plenty of one- and two-person cabinetry shops that provide clients with a close working relationship during the design-build process, but can’t handle large projects, he said.
On the other side of the equation are larger cabinetmakers that can deal with volume.
However, those operations generally use a dealer network to do on-the-ground work.
“There’s a lot of really high-end architects and designers out there that don’t want to go to another dealer — which is basically another design showroom — and give that very important aspect of the project over to someone else,” Sentz said.
Lyndon Heath occupies that spot in the middle.
“We’re small enough that it really is a truly personal relationship, but we’re big enough to do a $750,000 millwork package in a home and execute it well,” he said.
That means concentrating on only one or two projects at a time — projects that can span two years from start to finish.
John Nolis, senior architect and interior designer at Annapolis-based Purple Cherry Architects, has worked with Sentz and his company on projects over the past two years.
“Lyndon is, without a doubt, the most knowledgeable, artistic cabinet builder I have ever been involved with,” Nolis said.
“The quality of his work is on a totally different, much higher, level than other hand-crafted cabinetry shops I have dealt with in the United States and Europe. Lastly, there is an incredible sense of pride and caring that Lyndon brings to the table. That makes him a true pleasure to work with, no matter what the project may be,” he added.
Lyndon Heath doesn’t have a catalog or a standard pricing system for its work. The firm instead strives to accommodate whatever the client, builder or architect has in mind.
“We say things only get built once,” Sentz said.
For example, Sentz said a client wanted cabinets with an “automotive” finish — one that mimicked the finish on a car.
The firm has completed a single closet that cost almost $200,000, as well as $150,000 kitchens, Sentz said.
Photos from Lyndon Heath’s Facebook page feature a richly paneled 520-bottle wine cellar the company did, as well as the single largest room the company has ever completed, comprising 32 cabinets, each 10 feet high.
Most clients are in the Baltimore-Washington area, with some in Philadelphia, Annapolis, Maryland, and New York City.
“It’s all relationships and word of mouth,” Sentz said. “Once we get in with a designer or a builder, we make sure that whatever it takes, their experience is so good they have to call us back the next time.”