Amish entrepreneur finds way in Cleveland

The store’s official opening was this weekend.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Bill Byler gets up well before dawn and puts on wool pants, a cotton shirt and a straw hat. Up to that point, it’s a typical routine for any Amish man.

But few Amish ever do what Byler does next.

Rather than climb into a buggy and head for the fields, Byler grabs his cell phone, hops in a taxi and rides 45 miles from his home in rural Middlefield to a spot on West 25th Street just south of Lorain Avenue. Like many other commuters, he leaves early to avoid rush-hour traffic.

Byler is an Amish entrepreneur in the city. Along with his father, Wally, and sister, Ellen, he owns and operates a store in Cleveland called Amish Heritage Wood Floors and Furnishings. The store sells the handiwork of 12 area Amish families, everything from hardwood flooring, tables and entertainment centers to honey, pies, artwork and quilts.

Its nearest potential competitor is an Amish-owned store in Chesterland, nearly 30 miles away, while its next-door neighbor in Ohio City is a tattoo parlor. Meanwhile, it may be the only retail shop in the area open at 8 a.m.

“This is just another example of how diverse this community really is,” said Abe Bruckman, director of real estate development for the Ohio City Near West Development Corp., which helped Byler settle into the shop.

Amish Heritage opened quietly Oct. 15 but set an official grand opening for this weekend, complete with a raffle for furniture and quilts.

Soon, the family will spin off the store’s food merchandise into a separate enterprise, a bakery booth down the street at the West Side Market. Byler said he’d like to open there the Monday before Thanksgiving.

As for the commute, Byler claims to love it. He said it gives him time to talk with his father, who often joins him at the shop.

Byler may be new to Cleveland’s business community, but he’s no stranger to business. For the past 10 years, he and his father have been running Cherokee Hardwoods, a flooring and log cabin-supply store in Middlefield. The store even has a Web site.

Looking for a way to offset the cost of commuting to the city — the family has a contract with a taxi driver — Byler considered opening a second store near his home. Then he realized a simple economic fact: The supply of Amish-made goods in Middlefield exceeds demand. Rather than open another Amish store there, it made more sense to go where the need was greater.

“Not everyone can be farmers, and it’s tough for everyone to have the same thing in the same area,” Byler said. “We’re taking those products to [another] market and seeing what they’ll do.”

Cindy Bucci, the non-Amish owner of Sam’s Amish Furniture in Columbia Station, said she deals with Amish suppliers in Holmes County and can attest to the sluggishness of Ohio’s Amish economy.

Like many other sectors of the regional and national economies, “They’re hurting,” she said. “It trickles down to everybody.”

Still, it’s doubtful everyone in the Geauga County Amish community supports what Byler is doing.

Byler said the Amish families who make the furniture and food products he sells in Cleveland are “excited” by the opportunity, while others are “surprised” and have “mixed feelings.”

Likely rubbing points for those critics are Byler’s long trip from home and his growing number of business ventures. But Byler shrugs off these objections with two words: “Times change.”

Religious rules prevent Byler from driving a car or operating a computer. Still, he’s keenly aware that gas prices are high, that the housing market is in a slump and that more and more people are shopping on the Internet, even for large items such as furniture.

As for the corner of West 25th and Lorain, Byler said he chose the location because it’s a transportation and business hub. Looking out his storefront window onto the steady stream of traffic, he sees more potential customers in a few minutes than he’d see all day in Middlefield.

Cleveland retail analyst Robert Antall, chief executive of LakeWest Group, offered a rosy prediction. He said Byler “seems to be going about it the right way” and has “solved the quality issue.”