Chris and Brenda Lorton are partners in the truest sense of the word.
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The Jerseyville couple has a family together and multiple businesses. Recently, the two expanded their construction business to add Lorton Home Center at 700 S. State in Jerseyville.
Chris Lorton describes the new home center location as the “best location in Jerseyville.” The new location stands at a stoplight on State Street. Walgreen's is directly across the way from the new home center.
“It has almost 30,000 square feet in the building,” Chris Lorton said. “We have 10,000 square feet of the main floor developed. The big thing we did with the building was create a dock where trailer trucks can unload and load which it didn’t have before.
“We will evolve as far as a home center, right now doing flooring, roofing, siding, windows, painting, etc. We will do what we have been doing with the construction company, but we will eventually do kitchen cabinets, cabinet tops, and we have another 10,000-square-foot showroom to develop. We have a drive-in basement for storage and a shop downstairs.”
Chris Lorton is a master at taking old buildings and creating new lasting treasures out of them. He has already done much of that to this old building at 700 State St. that used to be an old apple house.
Back when the building was built, there were an abundance of apple orchards around Jerseyville and it was big business, Chris said. He adds that the building was made out of concrete and steel and built to old apples and last a long time.
Chris and Brenda have had the construction business for 17 years. Brenda leads the office portion of the business, while Chris focuses on the management of the projects, making sure everything is done just right.
Chris and Brenda also have 50 commercial and rental properties. Chris said he believes the new home center brings all his businesses together.
“People can come in and actually look at what we have and design what they want,” he said.
Lorton Construction handles nearly any type of job from roofing, siding, window, masonry work, tuck pointing, flooring and more. Chris graduated from Eastern Illinois University after attending Calhoun High School and started as a teacher for seven years before he moved into the construction industry, which is what he truly loves.
“It seems like when there is a difficult job to be done, when a cross is blown off a tower, we get the call,” he said. “When you help people when they are down and out, they call you back on the other things and easy stuff. I think another thing is just doing what we say we are going to do. That is a part of our success. If a job can be done and it is reasonable for me to do, we take it on.”
Brenda Lorton said she thought her husband had done an excellent job revitalizing the building, which is something he enjoys doing.
“Chris has wanted this building for years because of the location,” Brenda said.
Lorton Home Center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. The home center will continue to develop and evolve with materials, Chris Lorton said.
Lorton Construction primarily services Jersey, Greene and Calhoun counties. For more information about the business, contact 618-498-5810.
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