Horse Barn Buildings, California Ranch Barns, Metal Buildings

When you’ve spent your entire career constructing buildings, you tend to know exactly what to look for when building your own structure.

For San Diego construction manager Steve Nelson, it was important to find the right building supplier as he planned his 2005 retirement to a 10-acre ranch in Mendocino County, California.

That’s why he chose Allied Steel for his ranch’s barn after a long and detailed search.

“This ranch is very important to me. I’ve been putting up buildings all my life, so I know exactly what to look for,” Nelson says. “For the new barn, I was very satisfied with Allied Steel on issues of quality and price – and impressed with the plans and delivery.”

In 1984, Nelson had purchased the ranch with plans to “someday” retire there. The land, in the coastal county North of San Francisco, features towering redwood trees and access to the Eel River.

Ten years later, Nelson began building his retirement home on a spot where there had formerly been a small cabin. He had the cabin moved, and the home was finally built in 2002 – although Nelson admits the house is still not “100 percent finished.”

“I moved the cabin, because it was sitting on a beautiful piece of ground,” he says. “That’s where we wanted our home to be, as well as the barn, because of the views.”

For the barn, Nelson found a 55- by 40-square-foot Allied Steel building that met all his needs for storage. In March of 2004, he placed his order with Allied for delivery in August. The barn arrived on time and missing just two small parts that he called in and delivered within a week.

“There were no problems with the blueprints, Allied sent them exactly as we specified,” Nelson says. “That’s a big point with me because of my construction background. And we had no problems with permits or zoning, since we had just built the house.”

Nelson made the 12-hour trek from San Diego for the delivery of the building, and hired contractor Rich Gandola to construct the barn. Gandola’s three-person crew used their own equipment to build the barn in about three weeks, finishing in mid-September.

“Everything went smoothly during the construction, and everything was where it was supposed to be according to the plans and blueprints,” Nelson says. “That can be kind of rare in this business.”

Nelson knows first-hand. He spent his career as a construction manager for a pair of San Diego-area construction companies. He knows there are many things that can go wrong in manufactured steel buildings, from delivery problems to blueprint snafus.

He says this lifetime of knowledge helped him appreciate the experience of working with Allied Steel. Especially since Nelson chose to stay in San Diego during the construction and completion of the building.

“I’ve been in the construction game a long time and have a lot of experience with this sort of thing,” Nelson says. “For that reason, I can tell you we were very pleased with everything about working with Allied Steel – from the people to the building itself.”