Page 17 - CMA PROfiles Winter 2021

FEATURED SHOP
HEARTWOOD CUSTOM WOODWORKS

Mountain Majesty

by Carla Atkinson

Second-generation woodworker Carl Jordan has a motto about “Dad was born in
how to be happy in your work: “Do the work that you love for Germany and learned the
the kind of people you like to work for.” trade of cabinet-making

We’ve probably all heard the first part of this advice: It’s ideal to as a boy,” he says. "He
find work that you love. But the idea that you should be picky did the traditional
about who you do that work for is less common. Many of us are apprenticeship, became
wired to think that getting customers through the door is the a journeyman and then
goal — that a paying customer is a good customer. a master cabinetmaker
But difficult customers can make your days miserable and cost and emigrated to the US.
you money in the long run, so Jordan has no qualms about his He was involved in other
philosophy. professions throughout Janet & Carl Jordan
his life, but he always
“I interview them just as they’re interviewing me,” he says. “I
have my ‘gut indicator’ when I talk to a potential client. Do they had that woodworking experience to fall back on — and he did,
meet the profile of a client I like to work with? Some people do, many times.”
and others definitely do not. Trust your gut.” Jordan’s father settled in the Chicago area when he came to
the US, and later moved the family to Colorado, which is where
Jordan grew up.

Every year or two, the business “My dad made a lot of the furniture in our house,” he recalls,
seemed to grow one way or another, “and I was often in his shop, playing with his tools and making
leading to where we are today. things. That was my initial spark.”
— Carl Jordan But when he headed off to college, Jordan’s plan was to
become a landscape architect, not a woodworker. A couple of
years in, he decided not to finish college and headed back home

Jordan has built a satisfying, successful business in part by to the Eagle Valley.
following that simple rule of thumb. With the help of his wife “Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts are at the upper end of our
and business partner Janet, he has parlayed his family’s long valley, and one valley over is the Roaring Fork Valley, home of
tradition of woodworking craftsmanship into Heartwood the Aspen ski resorts,” he says. “So needless to say, I became a
Custom Woodworks in beautiful Eagle, Colorado. ski bum for a season or two.”

AN EARLY START Then one day, a German cabinetmaker friend of his father’s
Carl Jordan has been around workshops for as long as he can showed up at the ski shop where Jordan was working and asked
remember. if he’d like to help with some projects.

CABINET MAKERS ASSOCIATION 15