Although many think of the builder’s realm as a predominately male one–sweaty guys in pickup trucks, extension cords and hand tools – Lakewood builder Debbie Burk refuses to give in to other’s preconceived notions.
“I don’t like that old cliche, ‘woman working in a man’s world,'” she says, sitting at the dining room table of her Lakewood home one sunny afternoon. “It’s very `70s; I really don’t think it applies any more. Historically, there have been many cultures where women and men both contributed to building and maintaining homes.”
Burk does her homework, a fact that is as apparent in her quietly confident manner as it is in the success of her remodeling business, Bryan Custom Homes. A premier remodeling and renovation company in the Lakewood area, Bryan – started in 1982 by Burk after 10 years of working for others–now employs around 60 subcontractors and handles 10 to 15 projects yearly; they can range in cost from $50,000 to over $2 million. Burk started out building new homes, but moved to remodeling in the mid-`80s.
“The economic climate had changed,” she explains, “but I also found remodeling to be a great deal more fun. It was fascinating. It was a great deal harder than building a new house, but there were more challenges and more chances to be creative.”
Although she dismisses many of the male/female cliches that she encounters in her work, she still feels that her gender gives her an advantage in her work. “Men tend to look at a house as shelter,” she says. “Women look at it a something that you run and maintain. I think what I bring to our jobs is a woman’s sense of what works for easily maintaining a house, what makes it livable for an entire family. Small things that can make a big difference in everyday lives.”
There are other advantages as well. “Everybody who works for me has been with me for 15 or 20 years,” she says. “That gives me better control over the process, and better consistency in the product we create. It also makes a big difference that I absolutely love what I do.”
Equally helpful is Burk’s sense of the human factors involved. Bryan Custom Homes only does major renovations and full home remodels–no added rooms, no kitchen re-dos – and that usually requires a family moving out and profoundly altering their habits.
“It’s very stressful for the client. You’re dealing with people who are probably spending the largest amount of money they’ll ever spend, and with their home and private space it can get very emotional. There comes a point where people want to move back into their house, because it looks like they should be able to, but that’s a time when there’s still a lot of fine-tuning to do, critical stuff, and you don’t want to push your people at that stage.” She laughs. “It’s a crazy time, and I’ve definitely bought people meals and sent them bottles of wine.”
It’s obvious that Burk derives a great deal of pleasure from her work. “There is no perfect house. I want to make a house that I would be proud to live in,” she says. “And I want the customer to have fun , too. It can be a fun and very rewarding process.”
