Business Spotlight

Blake Metal Sales—Ensuring Longevity, Energy Efficiency, Affordability in Local Construction for 22 Years

Story by Corinne Saunders

Randy Blake, owner of Randy Blake Carpentry, Inc., and its subsidiary Blake Metal Sales, holds up synthetic felt, a green building material that goes underneath shingles on a roof. Recently, Blake has also begun selling curved head flashing, which goes over windows and doors, he said. Behind Blake are copper gutter sections purchased from CSC Sheet Metal. Photo by Corinne Saunders

Whether you’re remodeling or building a home for the first time, or second time, you want those involved in the construction process to care as much about the finished product as you do. Randy Blake of Randy Blake Carpentry, Inc. has been in business for 22 years for that very reason—he and his five full-time employees care about their work and are always striving to ensure longevity, energy efficiency and affordability.

“Building supply companies want to sell building materials,” Blake said. “They don’t get into the nuts and bolts [of the products]. We’ve had our metal engineered [and] our screws engineered. We’re about longevity. We answer a lot of questions for a lot of people.”

In 2002, Blake Metal Sales became a subsidiary of Randy Blake Carpentry, Inc, when his company started selling metal products to the public.

“We actually put our first metal roof on in 1991,” Blake said. “At that time, [interest in] metal roofs [was] starting to pick up.”

Blake, a licensed general contractor and certified green builder, averages 3,500 minutes each month on his cell phone, much of which is metal-related, he said. It is not uncommon for people to call with specific questions related to the building process and Blake freely gives out his expert advice. The honesty of his company bolsters not only their business, but helps clients and future clients with the whole building process.

“We have a lot of people come to us with questions on metal roofs dos and don’ts. We try to give everyone the best bang we can for their buck,” he said.

The company builds, on average, one new house once every two years, Blake said. “We do more remodels than new construction.”

He has remodeled for second homeowners from Raleigh, South Carolina and Florida, among others, and usually receives work by word of mouth, he said.
“We’re thorough in all we do. We’re problem solvers [and] we try to make remodels as energy efficient as possible,” Blake said. “We were actually building green 12 years ago, [and] just didn’t know there was a word for it.”

Blake, born in Bedford, Va., because his dad was in the Air Force and stationed there at the time, now lives on the same farm in Vilas where his mother was born.

His father was from Charleston, W. Va., and his parents met in Cleveland, Ohio, he said. He lived in Ohio for nine years, until they moved to the High Country in 1968, and Blake started sixth grade at Valle Crucis Elementary.

In 1975, Blake graduated from Watauga High School, and he attended Caldwell Community College for one year but lacked the financial means to continue school.

From 1976 to 1987, he worked in food service for a chain of restaurants in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee called Western Steer. He began as a meat cutter but quickly worked his way up in the corporation.

“I was the number two man in a restaurant chain that had 15 restaurants—quite a feat for a guy with no college education,” Blake said.

In reality, he was the man in charge, he said, because his boss never went to the restaurants. Blake did quality control, oversaw 42 managers—most of whom did have college educations—and was in charge of hiring and firing the managers.

Blake quit in 1987 because he was tired of others making money off his efforts and he and his wife, who is from Boone, wanted to raise their children in the High Country, he said. Blake lived in Georgia at the time, because that was the location of Western Steer company headquarters, he said.

Construction had consistently been a part of Blake’s life since he and his younger brother helped their father build decks, and then houses, beginning when his brother was 13 and he was 14, he said.

“All the years I was in the restaurant business, I worked construction on my days off,” Blake said.

In September 1987, Blake started his own business, and for 21 years, he operated it out of his basement. Since September of last year, he has rented part of a former restaurant that is attached to a service station in Zionville for an office.

Blake currently has a model home under construction that he spent 1.5 years planning out to ensure that it is as energy efficient and as cost effective as possible. He, his subcontractors and Bill Delligatti, an architectural designer in Banner Elk, contributed to the design, and this home will be a prototype for a smaller home that is suitable for single parents or retirees, he said.

His company is continuing to move in the direction of affordable, energy efficient homes, and he and his workers will continue to take classes to keep up with construction industry trends, Blake said.

The quality of his company’s metal products, too, is something in which Blake takes pride.

“The caulking we use is especially made for metal roofs,” he said.

All of Blake’s products except one are made in America, he said, adding that he does not want to use any metals that come from overseas.

“We’re always striving to have a better metal product than anyone else,” Blake said. “We try to be a step above. It’s a family business, and we hope the business continues for the lifetime of my son.”

Blake’s 28-year-old son Adam is his foreman, and will take over the carpentry business when Blake retires, he said. Blake still plans on running the metal sales after his retirement, he added.

Randy Blake Carpentry, Inc. is located at 9258-2 Highway 421 North in Zionville. The business is open from Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information, call 828-297-2069 or 828-964-6329.