How did Carolina Custom Shutters get started?

It all began with two guys who met in the Fall of 1986 at Western Carolina University. Jody Hooker and Pat Watson joined the same fraternity that Fall & began a 38 year (and counting) brotherhood and friendship.

Jody and I both graduated in May of 1991. Jody went into his family business of window treatments. This eventually lead him to form Southern Custom Shutters. I got married that June and moved to Maryland with my wife... but I always wanted to get back home to North Carolina.

Jody knew I wanted to get back home. In 1992, he called me & asked me if I wanted to move back to NC to help him with his business. I did.

I spent two years working with Jody & then made a move into the furniture business. My family had been in the furniture business since my great grandfather started Moody's Handmade Furniture in the early 1900's. Designing and manufacturing furniture is a lot like designing and manufacturing shutters, so in a way I never left. Any time a friend, neighbor or relative needed window treatments, I was either making them, installing them or both; literally all over the country and all over the world.

My wife and I were fortunate to be able to buy a home in Sunset Beach. We knew it was where we wanted our "forever home" to be.

My friend Jody's company (Southern Custom Shutters) had become one of the largest manufacturers of plantation shutters on the East Coast. I made the decision to start Carolina Custom Shutters at that time to sell Jody's products on the coast. The rest is history.