Driving through the farm country around Plain City, Ohio, you’ll see what you’d expect.
Narrow back roads, clumps of trees, the occasional farmhouse and barn with a handful of livestock, and lots of crops.
But along one of the roads, you notice something peculiar. Rows of peaked, shingled roofs. You might think they’re the roofs of a farm’s barns, but there are too many, and in neatly aligned rows.
Then you come to a driveway opening and see a sign: Beachy Barns.
It’s not a mistake. The company has been there since 1982, when Lawrence Beachy wanted to create a business venture he and his 17-year-old son, Dale, could do together after he finished school.
“We actually did three buildings in 1981 to kind of try it out, and then we started in ‘82,” shares Dale. “I’ve been involved ever since, other than one year I did try another business venture that didn’t work out too well. I had a little discontent with shed building at the time, and then after that, I decided that maybe it’s not so bad.”
In the beginning, Lawrence was the sole proprietor, but Beachy Barns soon became an unwritten partnership with Dale’s father and his brother-in-law, until they formed an LLC in 1998.
“After dad passed away in 2007, along with some other things that came into play, I purchased the others’ shares of the business and became the sole member of the LLC at the beginning of 2009.”
As the sole owner of Beachy Barns, Dale has followed his father’s example—in the business and his own career.
“Dad delivered sheds until he was in his low 70s,” he says. “At that point we didn’t have anyone else to do it, so I stepped in.
“At the beginning, I dreaded every trip, but after updating equipment and with some practice, I soon learned to enjoy it. It also allows me to be the last touch the customer sees in the whole process.”
Customers are surprised to see the owner delivering sheds—if they find out.
“If they don’t know, it’s interesting to hear the comments,” shares Dale. “How long have you been with the company? Is this your rig? And on challenging deliveries, whatever they pay you isn’t enough.
“I’m a social person and enjoy the customer interaction, but managing employees is not my forte. In that way, I am better off doing what I enjoy and do best and letting someone else take care of the rest.”
BUILDING BY EXAMPLE
But let’s go back to the beginning to see the full influence Lawrence had on his son and Beachy Barns.
Before getting into the barn business, Lawrence had been an Anabaptist pastor and a farmer. He also had the first commercial backhoe in the area in the 1960s and worked as an excavator operator.
He had some carpentry experience, but Dale points out that his father was new at the shed business, too, when they started. However, Lawrence did have some contacts in the industry.
Dale’s brother-in-law in Pennsylvania was a shed builder, and a pastor friend was also in the business: Benny Byler of Byler Barns in Virginia.
“[Lawrence and Benny] had some interaction,” Dale shares. “Not a lot, but enough that he was doing it at the time. Everything together kind of worked out.”
But Lawrence also had two qualities that translated well to the industry: working hard and meticulousness.
“Stuff had to fit and look nice, not necessarily go the cheap route,” Dale shares. “When it came to the sheds, he taught us to do it right. Make sure your joints fit, make sure that you keep it clean. Don’t be dragging mud inside, which is kind of hard to do sometimes on the job when building on-site.
“It was just by example. It wasn’t to be the biggest. He wanted to get income and have something that we could work together.”
The first shop, a 54-by-90 farm tool shed, is still in use.
“At first, we concreted about two-thirds of it and worked in there and then eventually finished out the rest,” shares Dale. “We actually didn’t insulate it until I think in ’96. In the winters, we’d paint the sections in the garage and then brought out and assembled it. It was a little bit warmer in there, better for the paint and all that.”
Lawrence and Dale were the only consistent employees for many years.
“My brother-in-law, he was kind of back and forth the first couple of years, but it would have been just dad and myself and then he would have been involved for I don’t know, maybe the first five or six years,” Dale says. “Toward the end of the ‘80s, we might have hired a couple of people. We started out pretty slow.”
Most of Beachy Barns’ advertising was a little in the newspapers, word of mouth, and home and garden shows.
The business evolved as more people got into the shed industry.
“Back in the ‘80s, there were probably three or four companies within fifty miles that we actually even competed with,” says Dale. “Now, we’ve got four dealer lots in Plain City, a city of around 5,000.
“As time went on, you had to add more. Things changed. It used to be the little red barn in the backyard, and now it’s pretty far from that. There are more uses for buildings than just sheds. People got more concerned about the appearance, and their yard is more of a focal point. And then, of course, as more people started building and you get more competition, you have to diversify a little bit to keep up with the times.”
When Beachy Barns started, they offered just four basic styles. Today, the business has around 14 different models.
“Even though we have that many different models, some of them are just a slight variation,” Dale points out. “You put a taller sidewall on it. It’s the same building as a mini barn; it just has a taller wall, so it looks completely different. Same with some of the others where we have the steeper pitched roof on the gable sheds. It becomes a different model.”
BUILDING TODAY
Beachy Barns’ best-selling structure over the years, to this day, is the gable-style shed.
“A lot of people don’t like the barn style anymore because it doesn’t fit to the contemporary look or the modern look,” Dale shares. “[The gable is] a nice building, and you can dress it up nice with window shutters or flower boxes or whatever, which again, some of that stuff is not as popular as it used to be, but it’s pretty versatile. You can put it anywhere, and it usually blends in with the house to a certain extent. It’s not a completely different structure. We do sell a lot of them with the steeper roof, too, the Cape Cod, with a little larger overhangs.
“Fifteen years ago, the high wall barn was kind of the hot item. It’s really dropped from what it used to be, percentage-wise.”
A small team of builders constructs Beachy Barns’ structure, both in the shop and on site. One person handles maintenance, and a general manager and salesperson keep the office staffed.
And while they’re building and selling and delivering, Dale’s wife is in the office handling the bookkeeping part time.
The company’s sales peak happened in the early 2020s at about 650 annually. Today, that number has scaled back to a more reasonable 450 structures per year.
Before 2020, the company worked with a few dealers, but today all of Beachy Barns’ sales and marketing is done online.
“Time will tell whether, or how good, that’s going to work,” says Dale. “Of course, it’s worked so far, obviously. The 2020 rush didn’t put us over the edge (to take all sales online), but it was in the works when we were considering it before then. We didn’t make a rash move just because of the 2020 boom. It was in our mind before that.
“Our theory was to put into marketing the 10 percent we pay the dealers, plus all the hauling and transport and all that, put it into online marketing. It was just a business decision that we made to see how it works.”
When a potential customer visits Beachy Barns’ website, they can view all of the styles and options available and “create” their shed with a 3D builder. Even with the web visualizer and automation, Dale says many still drive out to the farm site for a visit.
“It’s amazing how many people drive an hour to come out here and see them,” he says. “And they have three dealer lots in their area. It blows my mind how many people do that. I don’t know why, but there’s something about it.
“Just the other day, we had a couple here who drove 70 miles just based on our reviews and stuff they saw online. They originally were from Columbus. I don’t think they knew about us other than just what they did research (about) on the website.”
Right now, Beachy Barns is averaging about four weeks from order to delivery of a building. Dale estimates that 90 percent of his customers are from within 75 miles of the shop.
For on-site builds, he says few of the structures take more than a day to build. A 10 by 12 takes three builders about 2.5 hours.
“We have one guy who builds all the trusses, rafters, whatever you want to call them, and doors (in the shop),” shares Dale. “Then we have two guys who prefab all the wall sections. Then, the on-site crew assembles them either here in the shop or on-site. We have one other guy who is mostly just assembling in the shop.”
Dale says Beachy Barns is in good shape today when it comes to employees, but that hasn’t always been the case.
“There for a while we were kind of struggling (to find employees),” he explains. “I guess we’re a little bit selective because we want to keep our quality up.
“To find good employees who are willing to put in a day’s work for a day’s wage, that’s one of the bigger challenges right now. It’s a manual labor job. It’s not sitting behind a desk, and there are enough other opportunities out there that it’s a little bit harder to entice them.”
So far, the company has been able to find community people that they know and trust, at least people who they know where they come from. They haven’t had to resort to posting job openings online.
“Just keep your eyes and ears open,” shares Dale.
When a new person comes on board at Beachy Barns, they work with the other builders, especially the on-site, three-man crews. With that type of training, the culture of hard work and meticulousness gets started.
“They’re working together all the time,” Dale says. “As long as you don’t have too many new ones coming on at the same time, you build that culture. It gets passed on.”
THE FUTURE OF BEACHY BARNS, INDUSTRY
Like his father’s plans for the business, Dale’s plans for Beachy Barns are simple and grounded.
“If anything, grow a little bit, but maintain,” he says. “You have to be on top of things to even maintain right now. I’m 61, so soon it will be time to let somebody else take over. It’s at least in the back of my mind. I still want to get business for the next person if somebody wants to take it over.
“Always keep your eyes open and make adjustments as you need to.”
Over 40-plus years in the shed industry, Dale has seen many changes. There are a few things he’s noticed in the past few years.
“Probably one of the things that may be good, and maybe not, is consolidation,” he shares. “It is going to be interesting to see how much of the market is gone when the big get bigger. Personally, I think there’s still going to be a market for somebody like us, a small guy. I’m not too concerned about that, but it is still something that’s in the back of your mind all the time.
“We might have to find keep our niche where we cannot be just the cookie-cutter, mass-produced [buildings]. If they’re using the same material, one’s going to last as long as the other one. You’ve got to find a way to deal with it.”
Dale sees more customization and personal customer service as factors smaller builders must focus on more.
“You keep working at it and trying to stay on top of the game and hopefully maybe get a little bit ahead,” he points out, “but everybody else is trying to do the same thing.”
Dale encourages all of the smaller builders, especially the small family-owned businesses that have been around for a long time, to “hang in there and try to find your niche.”
“It’ll be interesting to see where the industry goes from now,” he concludes, “with all the changes from back when you did newspaper advertising and rolled a shed back on pipes to where you have all of the equipment and all of the marketing tools, the CRMs, and AI now.”
