About Us
Evening Star Joinery has been a fixture of the Harbor Springs community for over 40 years. Having spent the summers of his youth in Harbor Springs, Founder, Jeff Ford, put down roots in the community and started a small building company in 1980, focused on building craft and relationships. That small company has since grown into the area’s preeminent custom home builder, specializing in unique projects of all sizes situated on or around Northern Michigan’s crown jewel—Lake Michigan. While the team has grown and the types of projects vary, the founding tenets of craft, relationships, and community are still at the center of everything we do.
Our name, Evening Star Joinery, pays homage to Jeff’s grandfather’s sailboat—”Evening Star” (also the name of a wildflower native to Michigan)—and the name for where timbers and other wood products are fabricated—a “joinery.” The business began in the timber frame business, and continues to have two full-scale shops for cabinetry and millwork fabrication, in addition to our site crews. As the business has evolved, we have taken additional care to be stewards of the built and natural environment, integrating sustainable methods and materials and expanding our expertise in high-performance construction and building science.
As Evening Star Joinery enters its next iteration, we are as grounded as ever in the values we have held for over four decades. Our emphasis on operations and building science provide the nuancing required to succeed in this ever-changing industry and will assist in maintaining Evening Star Joinery’s commitment to craft, relationships, and community. With an expanded management team and leadership focus, Evening Star Joinery looks forward to deepening its capacity and service offerings particularly in the areas of project management, service-related requests, and community service.
A Family of Builders: Jeff and Peter Ford at a job site circa 1988.
Mission + Values
Evening Star Joinery works to merge age-old craft with modern-day building science and technology, to uplift our community and build a more resilient future.
We value our relationships. Everything we do is about the people involved; employees, clients, community members, trade partners, designers, architects, engineers. Without them, this business does not exist.
We commit to operational efficiency. ESJ prides itself on its processes and ability to provide straightforward, systematic solutions for complex projects.
We represent the communities in which we work. We are stewards of the land we inhabit and the communities in which we build. Our surrounding community is who we are and why we do what we do.
We seek to employ the friendliest building materials. Building anything is, by definition, disruptive to the natural world. We seek to minimize this disruption and utilize the most sustainable methods and materials available.
We embrace the challenges of building in our climate. We live in the coastal northland—Climate Zone 6—where winter reigns supreme for 5-6 months per year. We embrace the cold and the challenges it brings.
We are always learning. Always. And we promote this across all our employees through continuous training, formalized and spontaneous.
Team
We are an eclectic mix: former boat builder, part-time farmer, metalsmith, horseback rider, family members, amateur coaches, carvers, and woodworkers. All with a shared goal to build beautiful structures while improving the built environment and our community.
Jeff Ford
Founder & President
Peter Ford
Vice President
Community
Community is at the heart of everything we do at Evening Star Joinery. Our employees, our professional trade partners, their family members and our clients are all members of our Northern Michigan community, and we have a responsibility to lift up all stakeholders. As we see in so many sought-after destination areas like ours, the disconnect between our clientele and our workforce can be great. We are acutely aware of this growing disparity and feel a responsibility to reinvest in our community.
As a company, we are active in supporting our local organizations, financially and service based, and we empower our employees to do the same. We champion our local food pantry that supports the everyday needs of our year-round residents. We strive to preserve the natural environment in our region, not only in our work as builders, but through support of regional environmental and conservation organizations. We also recognize the critical role that educational and human services organizations play in our community. By supporting the local school system—including its robotics, athletics, building trades programs—as well as service organizations such as the Women’s Resource Center, we are helping to ensure that all members of our community have the opportunities to learn and grow in a safe and empowering environment.