Our Company Heritage
We are and always have been a small company with an emphasis on quality workmanship and customer satisfaction. Hurth Construction, Inc. was incorporated in 1994. The vast majority of our work is residential and commercial waterscape and landscape construction, but we also provide landscape maintenance services for our regular clients.
Our company is owned and operated by Doug & Lisa Hurth. We are a small company run by a handful of serious pond specialists and enthusiasts. We love the water garden industry, have ponds at home, wear multiple hats and perform any and all tasks that need to be done and we all know the ins-and-outs of the water garden lifestyle and can talk with you for hours about your pond. Please give us a chance to introduce you to the life changing beauty and peacefulness of a water garden.
We feel that being a smaller, tightly held company gives us certain advantages over the larger companies. We usually have only one or two projects going at any one time, which allows us to more closely monitor each project. We can be more flexible and creative when it comes to planning, designing and implementing a landscape. We will work closely with each client to be sure that their landscape is their own, not just a cookie cutter replica of the landscape down the street. We will treat your landscape project as if it were our own. And last, but certainly not least, we will be personally committed to successfully completing your project in a manner that best suits your needs and desires.
Years Bring Change
In 1999 we installed our very first naturally-balanced ecosystem pond and judging from the absolute delight and excitement that our clients and all of their neighbors felt toward the new pond, we knew that we were on to something big. From that day forward, we made it our mission to become the water garden experts in Wisconsin. We have educated ourselves and continually educate ourselves on both artistic design principals and intricacies as well as all of the latest construction theories and techniques. We have been involved in many projects, both large and small and have installed many different styles and types of ponds and waterfalls and our enthusiasm hasn’t waned one bit. As a matter of fact, I think that we are more excited now than ever. The water garden industry just keeps getting bigger and better and we try very hard to remain on the cutting edge.
Retail Endeavors
By 2006, after years of being asked where to go to buy pond related products, we decided that it was time to give our customers a place to shop for their pond products. We bought a building and opened a water garden and landscape retail showplace where people could go to experience the lifestyle and purchase any and all pond related products. Unfortunately, due to economic conditions, we were forced to close our retail store in the fall of 2008. We would like to thank all of our dedicated clients for their patronage. We truly enjoyed owning and operating the store, but it was too much of a burden for us to bear.
The Name of the Game
In 2007 we changed our name to HURTH Waterscapes. We received some great customer feedback and some new recognition due to our name change. We feel that the new name portrays our specialty and our focus very well. Over the 2007 season, everyone grew accustomed to the new name and now it feels like a natural fit. 2007 was a season of other changes for our company as well. We finally put into writing our“Best in the Industry” 10 year workmanship warranty. We had been standing behind our top quality work since we started in the landscape industry, but now we put it in writing. This new warranty seemed to be a real hit with our prospective clients, but it wasn’t such a hit with our competitors! Evidently our competitors thought that this warranty was just crazy, and I suppose it would be crazy for companies out to make a quick buck, but we plan on being here for the long run, and to stand behind our work and serve our clients needs seems like an easy decision.
Back on the Chain Gang
2007 was also the year that I made the commitment to personally work in the field as the crew foreman. I had always overseen our projects, but this was the first year in quite a few years that I had actually worked each day all day with the crew. I had battled for years to find the right foreman who cared about beauty, quality, our clients and efficiency, but I never found that person. I had come to the conclusion that very few people care about artistic creativity and quality of product the way that I do, so the clear choice was for me to do it myself. I am the one with the artistic vision and no one cares more about quality and customer satisfaction than I do. I have to say that I had a great season. Sure, it was a lot more physically demanding than my sales and office work that I had grown accustomed to, but it sure was worth it.
I had a great season, the clients received a great product and our artistry and efficiency has grown as well. Being in the field every day allowed me time to really think about the ponds that we build and the way that we build them. I was able to become more creative, take the time to do the little things that make a big difference, and improve our processes and procedures as well.
House on the Rock
We were given an outstanding opportunity in 2007 when we were hired to renovate one pond and build another pond for the House on the Rock in Spring Green Wisconsin. This turned out to be a fabulous job just overflowing with creativity and challenge. The people at the House on the Rock have been great to work with and the ponds turned out truly beautiful. This project excited us, challenged us, cemented our name a bit more as the pond and waterfall experts of Wisconsin, and continued to challenge us into 2008 with yet another pond project to build.
Winter Work
2007 was also the first year that we were able to sell a good quantity of work for the winter months. In the past we had plowed snow which turned out to be a rather tedious break-even kind of process for us. In 2007, in lieu of snow removal, we implemented a winter work discount program to encourage people to purchase our services to be performed during the winter months. This worked out just great, and we were able to complete several great construction projects over the winter. As you can see, 2007 was quite a year for us and we all eagerly anticipated the magic that the 2008 season would bring.
A Head Start
We were all very excited for the 2008 season to begin, and we anticipated yet another year of great change. However, no one anticipated all of the changes that 2008 brought with it. 2008 started in a very different way than any year prior. It was the first year that we were actively working on construction projects prior to April. I am not sure why we hadn’t done this in the past; it really isn’t difficult or unpleasant to work outside in the winter as long as you prepare yourself for it. The biggest problem with the winter work is still trying to find time to do all of the organizational work that we usually do over our winter.
Changes
In 2008 we changed the way we do things a bit and offered our clients more choices. In the past, like most companies in this business, we installed many ponds using bio-falls and skimmer boxes. These boxes are promoted as necessary items in a natural ecosystem pond, but the truth is that with our extensive field experience, I have developed several new and improved ways of doing things. I have developed a way to eliminate both the bio-falls and skimmer boxes, create an even better balanced pond, and a pond with a much more natural look and feel. We like to call this our Natural Flow System™. No longer must we look at artificial skimmer covers and protruding bio-falls boxes. There are less man-made parts to hide, less man-made parts to wear out and better filtration and pond balance to boot. We also started using the newly developed Constant Water Exchange system to keep our ponds full, instead of the typical problematic auto-fill valve of years past. We still built some ponds using the traditional methods, but most of our work involved using our newly developed systems.
More on the Rock
We completed our final pond project at the House on the Rock in early 2008. This final pond is in front of the newly constructed welcome center and is called the oriental pond. The new pond is larger and more dramatic than any other at the House on the Rock and it was a great experience for us all. This new pond has a pine tree island, multiple streams, bridges and waterfalls and even a waterfall bursting through a wall. You really need to see it to believe it.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
In general, our 2008 was rolling along really well at first, but then several things happened which made us drastically change our course. We were flooded, along with the rest of Saukville, which set us back a bit both in schedule and financial status. We did the best we could to recover from the floods and we realize that we had it much better than many Wisconsin residents whose homes were flooded for weeks or even destroyed. Our hearts go out to all of you who struggled with this devastating natural force in 2008. After the floods, we were really rolling along quite well until the economy started to falter mid summer and our sales dropped significantly in both our retail store and our construction.
I, being as determined and hard-headed as ever, felt that maybe we could struggle through it all. But, as the outlook for 2009 looked more and more grim, I had to make the tough decision to close the retail store and cut back drastically on all expenditures. Unfortunately, this meant losing most of our employees and moving back home where it all began many years ago.
Streamline
Since moving home, we have really streamlined our operation as many businesses have done over the past few years. We are no longer chasing all jobs, instead we are choosing the jobs that are right for us. It is so much more enjoyable for us and for our clients to do one job at a time and to make sure that it is done correctly and beautifully. The crew usually consists of me and my sons, but we do bring in some extra help when we need it. Having much less overhead and fewer mouths to feed and pockets to fill has made for a much more relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere overall. Since then, business has really picked up nicely and we have had our hands full every year. The work seems to always get more creative and challenging, just the way we like it.
The Best Crew EVER!
Our little boys have grown into strapping young men and they have been taking on more and more work every year. I am one of the lucky parents who gets to work with my kids many days out of the year and it is a true pleasure. They have been working in the business on and off since they were small, so they really know the ins and outs of the pond business. Now that they are the size of full grown men, they are truly able to take over some of the heavy lifting. It’s a strange feeling when your children grow up to be bigger than you, but in the landscape and water garden industry, a bit of extra muscle is always a good thing.
I’d like to say thank you to all of our wonderful clients, it has been and continues to be a great experience.
Sincerely,
Doug Hurth
Call, text or email me today and set up an appointment for an expert consultation.