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Entrepreneurs of the year: 2018

Growing hometown businesses

Limeberry Lumber & Home Center

LBM Journal Entrepreneur of the Year 2018

Sales $10 Under Million

Limeberry owners
Being a family-owned company creates a true “family feel” for both employees and customers, say co-owners Scott and Heather Limeberry.

A lot of LBM dealers have stories of how they were determined to find a career in anything other than the family business. Often times, these dealers can pinpoint the exact moment that something changed and they decided to come home. For Scott and Heather Limeberry of Limeberry Lumber & Home Center, our Entrepreneurs of the Year in the under $10 million category, that moment came from a phone call from Scott’s father.

Scott Limeberry’s story is a similar one in the industry. He went off to college, and wanted nothing to do with the family business. But like many others, eventually the opportunities and promises of home were just too good to pass up.

“I was the Kitchen Manager at a Chili’s restaurant and Heather was the Store Manager at The Children’s Place. One day, I got a call from my dad. He said, ‘What are you doing? You have a great opportunity here. You should really think long and hard about what you really want long term.’ That was in 1999. My grandfather (the company founder) had just passed away, and we decided to come home. We’ve been here ever since.”

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Forty years earlier, Scott Limeberry’s grandfather started the business in Corydon, Ind. as a roofing and siding contractor. Scott’s father worked for him. Over time, customers started asking for extra lumber and materials and soon the two ran a lumberyard and hardware warehouse.

In 2004, the family purchased a competitor and moved to a new building with a true focus on retail. Just seven years later, in 2011 Scott Limeberry purchased the business from his father.

Soon after the purchase, Scott and Heather Limeberry began updating and overhauling the Corydon lumberyard and showroom. Re-opened in late 2016, the new Limeberry Lumber & Home Center features a state-of-the-art showroom and expanded products and services. Prior to the remodel of the lumberyard location, Limeberry served a customer base comprised of 75% contractors. The remodel focused on supporting more DIYers, increasing their retail business to 40%.

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“We do a lot of advertising to support that,” Limeberry says. Scott Limeberry and his wife Heather purchased a second location in May 2017, in Floyds Knobs, Ind. The Do it Best hardware store was available a couple years earlier, and the seller held onto it until the Limeberrys were ready to make a purchase.

Limeberry Lumber
Limeberry Lumber’s move to a larger location in 2004 enabled the company to enhance its LBM roots while expanding its focus on retail and its growing DIY customer base.

Limeberry hardware department

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Limeberry service

“The energy in our stores is really fantastic,” Heather Limeberry adds. The Limeberrys purchased a second location in a nearby town and reopened it as a state-of-the-art lumberyard and home center in 2016.

GET TO KNOW LIMEBERRY LUMBER & HOME CENTER

FOUNDED: 1959
OWNERSHIP: Family
LOCATIONS: 2
EMPLOYEES: 34
SALES SOFTWARE: Epicor
PURCHASING GROUPS: Do it Best Corp.
TOP THREE VENDORS:
PPG Porter Paints
Sun Windows & Doors
Therma-Tru doors

While the lumberyard supports 24 of the company’s 34 total employees, a good number of the staff at the hardware store are original employees.

Together, the businesses generate nearly $7 million annually, with just a little over $6 million coming from the lumberyard. Limeberry Home & Hardware is predicted to be a $1 million a year location within five years.

Taking on the neighborhood “old time hardware store” has been headed up by Heather, who has brought in an additional 10,000 SKUs to the location that has long been a fixture in the community. As an independent hardware store, the location is still closely tied to Limeberry Lumber & Home Center, less than 30 miles away. Customers of the hardware store can also order building products that are shipped from the lumberyard.

“We can take orders from both locations and make deliveries from the lumberyard,” Scott Limeberry says.

The ties back to the towns in which they were raised have helped the Limeberrys set roots in the communities.

“The energy in our stores is really fantastic,” Heather says. “Our employees are really close, and we’re close with them. These are people we’ve worked with a long time. We don’t have high turnover. It really creates a family atmosphere and our customers can feel that too. When customers come in, we ask about their kids, and they ask about ours.”

While pricing and services—including installed sales, which the company started three years ago—keep the Limeberry companies in close competition with big boxes and other independents in the area, it is the customer relationships and community dedication that truly sets them apart.

“We’re invested in our customers, and our employees, lives. We enjoy coming to work and enjoy working together,” Heather says.

Just one example of the company’s involvement in the community is their work with a local high school marketing class. Each year, students spend a semester preparing and marketing ideas for the business. As the students grow in the community, they know the lumberyard and hardware store, and the business gets insight into younger peoples’ thinking.

“We’ve actually used some ideas,” Scott Limeberry says. “We’re invested in them and they’re invested in us.”

The spotlight on community has kept Limeberry Lumber & Home Center and Limeberry Home & Hardware at the top of the list for builders and DIY customers alike. As the community around them grows, Scott and Heather Limeberry feel they are well-positioned to serve housing growth and the new customers it brings.

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