CCL Customer Spotlight- Almar Building & Remodeling

CCL takes pride in working hard for our hard working customers. From the small mom and pop shops to the larger remodelers and developers, CCL treats every customer like family. We bring a partnership level of customer service to each and every independent contractor or business who comes through our doors and this notion couldn’t be more true than for Almar Building & Remodeling, one of our longest standing clients.  

 

Almar Building & Remodeling

Almar Building and Remodeling is a family owned business located in the South Shore, just minutes away from us here at CCL. Started in 1959, the company is now in its third generation of family ownership when Allison, the granddaughter of the original owner and her husband, Craig, took over management in 2002. Almar primarily focuses on residential remodels within the South Shore, doing everything from installing windows for a client to a $250,000 kitchen remodel all the way up to a million dollar new house build. 

“We spread the gamut of residential remodeling here in the South Shore and we stay in the area, working in all the towns of the Rt. 3 corridor.” – Craig

Both CCL and Almar have been in business over 60 years and have been working with each other from the beginning; Harvey Hurvitz from CCL used to open up the gate himself and helped Almar’s original owner, Terry, load his truck with his order. Over the past twenty or so years, Almar has used CCL as their primary lumber yard and over the six most recent years, Almar has pulled most of their supply chain over to CCL due to our impeccable customer service and ability to competitively price.  

“We used to get our windows from somewhere else, we’ve moved that there. We used to get our roofing from another supplier. We used to simply get our lumber from them, but now we’ve moved most of our supply chain over to them.” -Allison 

 

Both Allison and Craig have seen over the past decade or so, some of the larger suppliers shift to a large corporate setting while CCL has stayed true to their roots and the model of being an employee-owned business. 

“Big suppliers that were locally owned have sold to corporate companies and their customer service declined. CCL, because of their model and the way their employees are, has seemingly gotten better over the past 20 years. [That’s why we’ve] pivoted more and more of our buying over to them.” – Craig

It was an easy decision for Craig and Allison to move most of their supply chain over to CCL–from fair pricing, to great customer service, to keeping business locally and family owned–but they ended up getting much more. Our sales reps are ready to handle any problem and come alongside our clients like we’re an extension of their company. 

“We’re a small, family and local owned business, for them to stay small and locally owned was important to us – keeps customer service great and keeps the money in Massachusetts.” – Craig

In 2018, Almar took on a custom 4,200 square foot new house build. They typically don’t do custom new home builds like this project, so they were grateful they had CCL to lean on to assist. Almar bought all the materials from CCL that they could for the project and used their experts as a sounding board as they were configuring the project. This led to not only more business for CCL, but cost savings for Almar and their clients as they didn’t have to hire their own in-house engineer, but could utilize CCL’s experts as guidance for the entire job. Throughout many projects Almar works on, their first call is to CCL to help guide them through how to use new and innovative products. 

“Working with Almar has been great and I really enjoy the partnership that we have built over the years. Prior to a client coming in to see me, Almar sends all the information I need. I’ll get the plan, rough measurements, and budget from them, and then I take it from there with the design. I love working one on one with their customers and having the opportunity to go into the home to see it in person, which helps a great deal with the whole design process. If I have any questions about the project, I reach out to Almar and get an answer quickly. This makes the whole process smooth and seamless between all parties, especially where their client is concerned.” – CCL Homescapes Kitchen Designer, Andria

No matter what project or what market, CCL is there to be a partner and extension to Almar as well as any of our other clients. Throughout the past six months of living and working in a global pandemic, we’ve been proactive in communicating the uptick in pricing and downtick in availability of products to all of our clients, and will work tirelessly to get our clients what they need. 

“When they realized that pressure treated lumber would be a shortage, they let us know ‘Hey, is there anything you’re going to need to order, we’ll order it now and set it aside for you.’ And we just had one issue that we needed just one piece of 18’ pressure treated lumber for a project and nobody can get it. They’re doing everything they can to track it down for us.” – Allison

 

We strive to be a true partner to all our clients, making our warehouse, office, yard, showroom, and expertise accessible to them whenever they may need it. In particular, we open our HomeScapes Showroom to any of our customers and we’re thrilled that Almar takes full advantage of the opportunity. 

“The way they have HomeScapes set up now, it’s taken a lot of the hand holding away from us for our clients. Our CCL Homescapes Kitchen Designer, Andria walks our clients through the whole process and stays within their budget. It’s basically our showroom without us having to maintain it.” – Craig

Here at CCL, we value our clients like they’re an extension of our own team. From helping load our customer’s trucks, to fielding any phone call or email with questions, to opening our showroom to their customers, we’re here. Check out our CCL HomeScapes’ Kitchen Inspiration page where you can meet the team, watch a video about our process and/or schedule a time to come in and speak with a member of the team. 

And don’t forget to reach out to Craig or Allison at Almar to get that addition, deck, or kitchen remodel that you’ve always dreamed of completing.