The first thing you notice when you walk into Happy Harry's Used Building Materials is a grand oak revolving door unit.

The door is not functional, it's for sale.

"The one regret I have is not selling this when I had an offer," 'Happy' Harry Bohna said. "An auction house in Atlanta offered me $6,500 (US) and I should have taken it."

But it's one of the only decisions Bohna regrets since starting his used-building materials retail business two years ago.

Like many successful businesses, this one came about out of necessity. Bohna was a contractor and property manager for 17 years. He was buying old houses and building, fixing them up and then selling them. But when property values went south with the recession, he was forced out of business.

"I didn't go bankrupt, but I was sitting at home with nothing to do."

Bohna, 40, and his wife and partner, Carol, had been talking about the idea for a few years. In his days when he was fixing old buildings, he kept his own warehouse of used materials that he and other contractors would use. That inventory provided the core for the business.

On a sprawling, 1.5-acre site on Archibald that looks like a cross between a down-in-the-mouth lumber yard/hardware store and some kind of enterprise still under construction, Bohna treats the place like his own playground.

With about $200,000 in inventory, including, as he boasts, at leasts 1,000 doors and the largest selection of old bathtubs in Western Canada, Bohna said next year his store could turn over $500,000 in sales.

"We're the auto-wreckers of the building materials business," Bohna likes to say.

Now with a new store he's sold as a franchise in Calgary, Bohna has the largest used-building materials operation between Vancouver and Toronto. And it may be growing.

"This week he'll be in Toronto talking to a group of investors who have approached him about entering that market, too. But not with just one store.

"We're talking about five or six stores and a central warehouse," Bohna said.

After seeing his place, which is strewn with every size and shape of lumber, plumbing fixtures, bricks, windows and doors, it's hard to imagine a franchising structure in the traditional sense of the word. However, Bohna's handle on the business makes him an important resource in an environment where there is less tolerance for waste and more awareness about the cost and quality of material supply.

He enthusiastically points out several ragged bundles of hardwood flooring. "This is 50-year-old maple flooring from two old school gyms. You can't BUY this anymore." But Harry will sell it to you for $1.50 per foot.

Bohna said he's not doing anything new. Demolition companies have been doing this type of thing for a long time, but they called the operation a salvage yard. Bohna has put it into a retail setting. And being a former contractor, he knows what the contractors are looking for.

Since opening the store, Bohna said he has purchased the assets of 12 small, out-of-business construction companies to supply his customers.

"That's what sets me apart. I know what my customers are looking for and I'll go out and buy the stuff. We also have the expertise to know what materials will work the best."

The Habitat for Humanity charitable organization, which builds houses with volunteer labour, operates a similar not-for-profit used material store in Winnipeg, and has teamed up with Bohna in the Calgary store.

Bohna's enthusiasm for opeing more stores is partly because of the economics of scale he would have in the salvage business. He markets himself to demolition companies as someone who can go into a building and salvage whatever is worth saving before the structure comes down.

"For instance, when one of the oil companies shuts down 1,000 service stations, we could go in and do all the salvage."

With his business almost evenly split between commercial and residential revenue, Bohna is able to continue to indulge his interest in old things. Along with the cabinets and glass bricks and fire doors, the store also carries one-of-a-kind architectural artifacts.

He is going to put together a catalogue of items and the North American outlets where these pieces could be bought.

And even though he would rather have the $6,500 (US) for the revolving oak door, he probably wouldn't shy away from marketing another revolving door unit.

Copyright 2006 Happy Harry's Used Building Materials. All rights reserved

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