He started mowing lawns and shovelling driveways as a kid, but his entrepreneurial spirit led to bigger and better things for a Collingwood-based home builder.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood we spoke with Milan Smeh, 53, owner and president of Legendary Group.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: I was born in Toronto in the west end, and I lived in Parkdale until I was about six. Then we moved to Mississauga. So basically, I grew up in Mississauga, and I lived there until I was 18.
Then, I went to university and never went back.
My mom sold the house that we had there. So, there wasn't really a place for me to go back to.
Q: What did you go to university for?
A: I went to Western University for civil engineering.
Q: Did you go into that as a career?
A: I did not.
I had an entrepreneurial spirit at a young age. I used to mow lawns and shovel driveways. In university, I started a business building decks, which funded my university career.
I knew I'd be self-employed, probably in the construction industry, and civil engineering was a good background degree. I was good in math and science. It came pretty easy to me. University was fun. It was stress-free. It was the best time of my life.
Q: What ended up bringing you to Collingwood?
When I graduated university, I took a couple of months off and drove around North America with my best friend in an old pick-up truck.
When I was in British Columbia, I came across several large log-home building facilities. B.C. is kind of like the log-home-building capital of North America.
I thought that would be a pretty neat niche market to get into.
When I returned from that trip, my father had bought a property just south of Wasaga Beach. I was able to start a facility there and start building log homes, back in 1993. In 1997, I purchased an industrial property in Collingwood – five acres. That was the year I got incorporated. I built a model home in Wasaga Beach, and then in 1999, I sold the model home and moved to Collingwood.
Q: Was that how you started your your company, Legendary Group?
A: Legendary Group was originally Legendary Log Crafters.
Up until 2008, we were primarily building handcrafted log homes and shipped a lot of them down to the U.S. We also shipped some to Korea in the late 1990s.
When the financial crisis hit in 2008, the log home market was just decimated. Like 90 per cent of companies went out of business.
It was a luxury item. They were significantly more expensive than a regular home.
We came up with another product, which was still residential construction, but instead of using log it uses conventional construction.
We've been doing that strictly for the last 14 years.
Q: Can you describe specifically what your business does now?
A: So now, it's a pre-fabricated product, essentially, the exterior show and some interior components, but it's not a finished home.
Ours are built in panels and then delivered and installed in a couple of days.
There's enough demand close by so we build about two dozen homes a year. Half of those are within 20 minutes of Blue Mountain or Collingwood. The other half would be within three hours of South Georgian Bay.
There's enough business close to home that we don't need to travel further than that.
They are a high-end product. There's a ton of building going on around here. The last couple of years, people have recognized the benefits of pre-fabricated homes, they're built more efficiently. They're built to a higher standard.
Q: You’ve talked a little bit about how you've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. What drives you to have that passion?
A: One of the main things that probably drives me is the freedom to not have to answer (to anyone). I like being in charge, for sure. I like dealing with people, and I'm a pretty hands-on guy.
It's also what the product is. I wanted to start like a nice, green franchise. I developed some property in California where I bought a church. I subdivided and put detached homes there and turned the church into two apartments.
A lot of the houses I've built, they've had a lot of unique elements and that kind of keeps me going.
Q: Do you have other hobbies?
A: Being more established now, I typically work standard hours, whereas when I was building my business, I was working six and seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day.
I don't need to do that anymore. I've got an excellent staff. The business essentially runs itself.
I have two kids; nine and 12.
I live on a 16-acre property on Mountain Road. I spend time with the kids building tree houses. I also work with heavy equipment and landscaping and just improve the property.
I do collect some cars.
The car I'm working on right now is a ’76 Volkswagen Beetle convertible. It was originally supposed to be more customizing but it has turned into some restoration work.
When I was younger, I was a Bug fanatic. At one point, I had six or seven of them. When I was 15, I bought a very rare 1952 Bug – which was the first year they came to Canada – which I still have.
I don't have a problem keeping busy.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we speak with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way, letting them tell their own stories in their own words. This feature runs on CollingwoodToday every weekend. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
