Artisan Historic Contracting
Mission Statement
I plan to take on projects that aid the community by preserving the history and traditions of the trades, while restoring what is being lost to the ravages of time. By aiding home and building owners, we create a dedicated network of trades, crafts, artisans, business, civic leaders, and all who wish to help. Additionally, we teach those eager to learn these crafts and trades both in the field and in the classroom.
Finding My Path to the Future
My path began when my grandmother had a stroke. She was bound to a wheelchair and lived in an old Victorian built in 1918, a house I love dearly. She needed access to the house upon returning from the hospital. My uncle, who had just returned home from Vietnam, and I spent the summer building a beautiful wheelchair ramp to match the existing house. I was 8 years old, and it was the first time I met him. The first thing he taught me, after how to hammer a nail, was a lesson that has recurred throughout my life and what I teach my children: “A carpenter never leaves a bent nail in place even if he must straighten it himself.” It was a life-changing experience, and I will always remember those three weeks during the sweltering summer of 1977.
(I lost him after his body gave out from years of abusing heroin. All that knowledge, skill, and life lost so young.)
When we were completing the white exterior siding, I told him, “When I grow up, I will be a carpenter,” like most of the men in my family on both sides, going back as far as the 1700s in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. He simply and directly told me, “The world changes, and we must change with it, but never forget the past. Remember the forgotten, integrate the past, present, and future. True beauty, he explained in a fashion that my 8-year-old mind would later interpret as meaning the following: Mountains are old and majestic, and trees new and sprightly, but each complements the other. As should your carpentry as an artisan, complement what you are building.”
After completing my training in carpentry and building maintenance at the Western School of Technology & Environmental Science in Catonsville, MD, in 1986, I spent the next years, due to life’s circumstances, traveling and working in the field of carpentry. I worked in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Missouri, Illinois, and California on some of the most heavily damaged, gorgeous old homes in need of time and care, as well as new homes. Most of those were built between the 1500s and the 1900s. I learned techniques and tricks unique to those regions of the country.
This began my love for restoration.
Now, after 35 years as a carpenter, I feel it is important to teach the trades to young people who do not want to be in “IT” or computer programmer or simply do not find joy working in an office but really enjoy being hands-on.
Artisan Historic Contracting: Works to restore buildings.
Jordan’s Design and Building / J.D.B. Restore L.L.C: Plans to work with schools, churches, at-risk kids, and veterans’ groups to teach and train new craftsmen to keep the trades alive and help build the future.
International Guild of Artisans and Masters Inc. (IGAM): Plans to be a place where those who love the trades can blog/talk, shop, and share old and new ideas. Also, share stories on the Haunted Restoration blog.
It is also planned to have Haunted Restoration appear on multiple types of media broadcasts in the future to help and support ongoing programs.
My journey
When I was 15, I found myself suffering from homelessness. The only thing I had was my love of carpentry and a twilight program through the Western Institute of Technology that taught trades. If they knew I was homeless, I could never have attended. Luckily, I could get a work permit and work as an apprentice in Baltimore for 5 years. To have a safe place to stay and sleep, I joined The Guardian Angels. After my apprenticeship and other life-altering factors, I decided to leave Baltimore in December 1992. With $400, I bought a bus ticket to Riverside, CA, and a little food.
In Riverside, I found basic resources to help maintain a person suffering from homelessness. I used to sleep behind the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside on Mission Inn Blvd. and Lemon St., where I talked about carpentry and working on old houses with someone involved with the church’s restoration board. This was the beginning of my journey in January 1993.
I did not survive well in Riverside. An architect working with the church’s restoration board suggested programs in downtown LA (Skid Row) that might help. He gave me $20 and told me to go there. Skid Row was like North Avenue and Pennsylvania Ave (Penn North) in Baltimore but warm year-round. I found structured programs, but something always fell short, and I had to seek resources and other programs the fill the gaps. Without my trade I would have starved. It took 3 months to find and schedule the 3 programs I needed to get off Skid Row: Education, Training, Therapy, and Access to Resources.
In September 1993, I got my first apartment in LA.; Six months later, I was installing screw jacks in partially collapsed apartment buildings after the January 1994 Northridge earthquake in Reseda California.
On two other occasions I found myself suffering from homelessness again.
In 2000, In January my father died in Baltimore and my second child was due to be born in California. Also, I opened a small construction company in Moreno Valley, and was trying to buy my first house, but the person selling the house did not own it, and the FBI soon showed up. My family had to move, and I went back to Baltimore to rebuild.
In 2007, I lost my handyman service just before the 2008 housing crisis, so I moved my family to Illinois to help a former client start a construction division for his Home & Garden business. In 2009, the mother of my 3 children had a heart attack. Due to the strain of medical issues and having three young kids under 14, work was affected. We were evicted in December 2011, the kids and their mother went to stay with her mother in Mo. Val., and I followed my family to Riverside in January 2012. I stayed at Hulen Place Homeless Shelter and worked to find a job and a place to stay. By April, I had a motel room and was working for a local contractor. I promised the mother of my children that I would never be more than an hour away from them. She died January 2014
In December 2019, I received my C-6 Contractor’s license and opened Jordan’s Custom Woodwork. Despite the COVID lockdown in January 2020, I persevered. In 2022, I became a General Contractor. However, the 2023 atmospheric river overwhelmed my business, by the third quarter of 2023 I was embroiled in a lawsuit with a client “as a contractor in California you expect to happen sooner or late and you plan for it”. What I did not plan for the scammers gas lighters and the amount of people there are just gaming the system. Especially the employment laws, the way their structured small business without backing will not stand and I suffered a stroke February.24,2024
With a heavy heart, I had to shutter Jordan’s Custom Woodwork and file for chapter 7 bankruptcy in March 2024. After taking time to heal, and as I healed physically and mentally, I studied the mistakes, missteps, my naivety and arrogance. I trimmed things, cut thing and changed things. One lesson learned is not to just settle to avoid employee problems i.e… scams. The loss of funds will kill a small business so keep detailed records and learn to represent your Pro Se`
Armed with this new business plan I opened Artisan Historic Contracting, specializing in historic restoration.
Our Services
- Repair: A Master Craftsman and a apprentice will be assigned to repair the damaged structure.
- Renovation: We integrate all elements of your historic structure to use the latest innovations in efficiency.
- Historic Restoration: We research the history of the structure to ensure we match every aspect of your structure’s restoration project to the finest possible detail.
Education: Integrating the old and the new, providing our restoration clients with a wealth of design innovations, the unique ability to replicate a lost home with modern amenities seamlessly blended into the design.
Training: In the field and online to give access to all levels of talent to ensure a product that meets our stringent requirements.
Therapy: The foundation of any business is its people.
Access to Resources: An area on the website dedicated to resources.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that a good, maintainable foundation is key. Even if all you have is a cardboard box to start, maintain it and use it as a jumping-off point or fallback point. This will help you not be afraid to take small risks. Remember each mistake you made and how you made them. Write them down if you must. Look out for the warning signs. Like I tell my 6 children: Please make mistakes but own them and learn from them, for with every mistake comes a lesson.
I still live just blocks away from the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside. To do my part, I developed a 5-month path out of homelessness program for youths, those newly released from incarceration, returning veterans, and anyone who needs it.
