CALGARY HERALD

New Homes

Saturday, April 24, 2004

COMPANY CLIMBS TO TOP WITH STAIRWAY

By Kathy McCormick

Calgary Herald

It took a design team three months to build – piece-by-piece, inch-by-inch – the whole 54 feet of corkscrew-shaped wood. The finished result was then coiled in through a large window in the home to put it in the stairwell.

Today, that unique circular staircase is the centrepiece of the home of Kevin and Kim Halliday – and a testament to the quality and innovation of Kevin’s company, Spindle, Stairs and Railings Ltd.

“The stairs are made with one continuous stringer,” says Kevin.

“It was a lot of hard work by the design team, headed up by Al Suska. It had to be built like a jigsaw puzzle.”

But the intensive work involved, as well as the time, made the stairs unwieldy for the average new homeowner – and thus, for the builder to put in new homes.

Undaunted, Halliday went the next step, designing a way to build the circular stairs without using jigs.

“This way, we can now build these stairs twice as fast and at less cost,” he says. “They take up less space, so it’s inexpensive for us and we’re able to do more volume.”

The result: “Builders have jumped on board. We’ve had an outstanding reaction.”

So much so that the production of the stairs has earned the company a SAM (Sales and Marketing) award for the best new idea of the year. The honour was presented at the recent awards gala of the Calgary Region Home Builders Association.

“We also have an interactive website where customers can pick their own spindles from 38 different types of iron, so they can design their own staircase, basically, for the same price,” says Halliday.

Such thinking outside the box has been a hallmark of Spindle, Stairs and Railings Ltd. Since it was incorporated in 1999.

Besides the SAM award, Halliday has racked up other accolades. Last year, the company was one of the top three finalists for Business of the Year competition in the small business category. The event was hosted by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

The company recently placed 11 th out of 30 businesses listed as the fastest growing companies in the province by Alberta Venture magazine.

The only other business involved in residential construction to make the list was Pointe of View.