History

History

In October 1992, Robert Luttrell left the field of architecture to work for Ralph Nichols at Majestic Fixtures, Inc. The plan was for Robert to work for Ralph while learning the business and then buy the company at his retirement. After more than two decades in business as Majestic Fixtures, Ralph Nichols retired in April of 1994 and sold the business to Robert Luttrell. The company became Luttrell Architectural Woodworks, Inc. and continued to build on the foundation that had been set in place. The craftsmen in place and the reputation of producing quality, high end woodwork were critical elements of that foundation.

We moved to our current location in January of 1999. We are occupying 30,000 square feet of this 52,000 square foot building. The move from 14,000 to 30,000 square feet is a good increase for us and we have another 22,000 square feet to expand into if needed. We also added new equipment during the transition which include a new dust collection system and a paint booth. The paint booth has intake and exhaust fans that move 12,000 cubic feet of air a minute while maintaining positive pressure. The air is filtered on the way in and on the way out and can be heated by a one million BTU heater. This makes an environment that is safe for the painter and enables us to achieve a high quality finish.

December of 1999 was the end of our fifth full calendar year. We have been blessed by having plenty of work and the people in place to produce it. We have grown from 14 people in 1994 to 22 people. Our volume has also increased from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000. Not to say we do not have some turnover, but here is an interesting statistic; of the 14 people here when Ralph Nichols retired nearly seven years ago, 3 retired, 1 left and 10 are still here.

2000 has been a big year for us so far. We completed our largest job to date, The Birmingham Athletic Club. Another large project is now underway for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama. And finally, we have just taken delivery on a Komo CNC Router. This new machine is a big step for our company as it is the first piece of machinery we have that is computer driven. For those who are not familiar, CNC stands for Computer Numeric Control. Basically, it is an overhead router with a 5' x 12' table that works in three dimensions to cut parts. We can draw the parts using AutoCAD, translate them to machine code and the computer drives the router to cut the parts. It can also change its own bits by picking one of twelve available in the tool carousel. It is amazing to watch!