Welcome to THE SIGN MAN RESIDENTIAL SIGNS

   Steve  was born and grew up in a small town in central Kentucky, USA.  He had a heavenly happy childhood among gentler folks in a simpler time.  Steve has loved to do artwork since he was a child.  He watched his Dad who could build anything and enjoyed wood carving and a bit of drawing posters for his job at a bank.  He loved the sense of contentment he felt from his Mom when she hand stitched clothes for her 7 children and herself.  His Mom tells a story of when he was about 3 years old and was a very good little boy who was wonderful at amusing himself.  She says he would sit quietly and blissfully coloring on paper on the living room coffee table.   Then he would trod over to the bottom door of the china cabinet in the kitchen of their tiny apartment, where he secretly knew she had hid bags of candy from him.   He'd steal a candy in his mouth.  Then he'd jump on his rocking horse and work off the sugar high.  Then he'd return to his coloring and repeat the cycle all afternoon. 

    As a young man, Steve moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and fell in love with the South Carolina coastal region before overpopulation destroyed it.  Before all the open marshes of the area were built over with millions of homes, he loved to explore the wild places in his old  pickup truck with his 4 puppies.  Before moving to Myrtle Beach, Steve had dreamed of moving to California to work for Walt Disney Animations.  But he was wise enough to know the aggressive and superficial sort of folks drawn to fame and wealth in Hollywood would eat his shy soul alive.   His first job  at the beach was as a waiter.  There were almost no other jobs in Myrtle Beach for him at that time when Myrtle Beach was a tiny beach town with no professional opportunities..  But he was fired after one week at the seafood restaurant due to lack of experience.  What could he do?  He was only good at art.  He got the idea to apply to a sign shop.  In those days, he learned hand lettering with a brush from the old time owner of the business.. 

    One day, the owner had an order for something Steve had never heard of; a sandblasted, redwood sign!  Steve loved the natural materials and unique artistry.  One weekend, Steve drove down to Hilton Head Island where the ordinances required all signs to be sandblasted.  Even McDonalds Hamburgers has a sandblasted sign.  He noticed it was wonderfully quiet on the island.  But it was not just audibly quiet; it was visually quiet!!!    Steve was inspired!!!!   This is what Steve wanted to do!  He wanted to beautify the earth with elegant, lovely, hand-made, wood signs.  

   After his apprenticeship, Steve opened a sign shop with the notion he would make only sandblasted redwood signs.  There was only one vacant shop available for a new business at the time.  The amazing thing is that Steve had first visited and fell in love with Myrtle Beach 7 years earlier.   When in college at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, he had travelled with 4 other friends in a Volkswagen beetle to Myrtle Beach where they wanted to visit a Spiritual Center Retreat.  Steve only wanted to see the ocean for the first time.  Before the group arrived at the retreat, they wanted to go to a florist to buy roses for an elderly lady friend.  It was the very first building Steve stepped foot in in Myrtle Beach.  At the time, Steve never imagined he would join that Spiritual Organization, move to Myrtle Beach, or have a sign shop in that very same building that was once a florist.  He became best friends with the lady who retired from the florist business  She was house-bound with only one leg.  He often visited her after work hours in the house, where she lived, behind the shop that she rented to him to be THE SIGN MAN.  She wanted to cook Steve's lunch every day.  But he wanted to diet and loose weight.  He agreed she could only make his lunch on Fridays.  But when he went next door to get his Friday lunches, there were always i a giant, cardboard box with platters of delicious fried chicken, a few whole pies, plate of sausage biscuits, a pot of coffee and many bowls of vegetable casseroles; enough to feed him and friends for a week!

   There were only about 5 carved or sandblasted, wood signs in Myrtle Beach at that time.  Steve's shop THE SIGN MAN, was the first shop to make only sandblasted signs.  Soon they were so popular, all the shops in town were offering them.  Soon, all the golf courses Myrtle Beach is famous for had them for every tee.  At first, Steve planned only to make commercial signs.   He had opened his shop on the main highway so customers would find him, instead of in a low-rent back alley where most sign shops are located.  But then a problem occurred.  Many married couples on vacation began coming in and stealing Steve's attention away from big, multi-thousand-dollar, commercial jobs.  They had seen his beautiful, carved & gilded sign on the highway and came in looking for a house sign.  They wasted Steve's time arguing on the color of the front door of their house.  Steve had no portfolios for residential signs and no wall samples in his showroom.  Every order had to be invented from ground zero.  This was a fly in the ointment and pulled him from his work.  Meanwhile Steve was spending long hours in hot, horrible, crowded, tourist traffic, driving the long length of the boulevard, giving commercial quotes.   But he was loosing most of his quotes.  They were a waste of his time.  Steve's prices were too high.  It was because Steve wanted to be fair and was paying his staff members an average of $22 per hour in the 1990s.  If he had lost his job, with all the skill he had; which was much greater than 10 staff members combined, and he had to go to work in another sign shop in town, he would not have earned more than $6 per hour.  Also, unlike more unprofessional shops, Steve was honest and paying his taxes.  Then when he returned to the shop from an exhausting day of giving quotes, his 10 workers were goofing off and not working while he was away.  And Steve wanted to be an Artist; not a quote giver!  Meanwhile married couples kept coming in looking for signs for  their homes.  

   After a few years of this, Steve felt God was directing him to make residential signs.  So he made it easier for his customers by creating portfolios and samples on his showroom walls.  He let go of his commercial accounts.   Then Steve loved his customers because they really appreciated the original art to go on the front of their homes much more than commercial builders who just wanted the fastest and cheapest sign to begin making money on new developments that were pure business.  The residential shop customers almost always say one of two things.   They either say "I always wanted a house sign like this but did not know where to go find one."   Or they say "I've seen your shop for many years when i drove by on my annual vacation and I decided today was the day i would finally come in to order my house sign."  

     Many customers frequently asked to be able to order a sign online after returning home.  They did not feel ready to make design decisions in the shop on the spur of the moment.  He tried.  But Steve could not offer to make custom orders online because it is too difficult with too many options.  Customers left the shop feeling frustrated and disappointed they would not be able to order such a wonderful product found on vacation once they returned him with time to consider what they might want.  And Steve was frustrated that had to turn away customers when he needed more income to build a more secure life for his elder years to come.  Then Steve had the idea that he would offer only the main signs people want and only with a very limited choices of artwork, sign shape, colors & fonts. So this web site was built to offer only the most popular designs which are family dogs and beach chairs.  A few more ideas have been added since.  Steve loves to hear the life stories of his showroom customers who become best friends as he helps them design custom signs for their homes in his studio.  And Steve is very proud that often, when the customers have returned home from vacation at the beach, and received their  house sign, they write him a card and say "The hour spent in your sign shop was the most fun I had while on vacation; even with all the massive entertainment that Myrtle Beach has to offer!!!!"