Over the past year, the Villwock family of Berrien Springs has essentially established sentinel posts on both the northern and southern flanks of the village, “bookending” the community with a tremendous range of products and services that increase our quality of life in the region.
The long running Villwock Farm established by the family patriarch, Al Villwock and it’s companion, Villwock’s Farm Market, where the matriarch of the family Dorothy Villwock and her son hold court, have been joined in the bracket by Al & Dorothy’s grandson, Mike Villwock and his Villwock’s Outdoor Living.
Mike and his family finally squeezed out a few moments to formally cut the ribbon on the new Outdoor Living center first anchored there nearly a year ago. Cornerstone Chamber officials, ambassadors and guests gave a rousing welcome to the facility at 8008 M-139 just north of the St. Joseph Valley Parkway, affectionately known as “the bypass.”
Mike says, “Villwock’s Outdoor Living is what we like to consider a full-service landscape supply, garden center, outdoor power — essentially everything that you could imagine doing outside. Patios, firepits, outdoor kitchens, anything that you could dream up, and we will either help you dream and create it, or we’ll help facilitate you in getting the necessary resources to do it yourself.”
What had been the former home to the Southwest Michigan Medical Clinic had sat idle for several years until Mike began his dream of piecing together his multi-faceted, division-driven, set of businesses into a large center where he could showcase everything at once.
His strong work ethic and moral compass were long ago developed as he mirrored Grandpa Al. That’s just the way he goes about doing his business, which is a fascinating conglomeration of all things outdoors. He says, “We’re very proud of the name that we’ve created as far as our local tradition and the ethics that we instill within ourselves, our family and our team of workers.”
That team of workers is running 40 strong this year, up from around 36 a year ago, and Mike jokes that he really should consider placing a permanent sign out front that says, “Always Hiring,” because he is continually in search of quality people to perform the professional services that his company brings to the table for clients of all stripes.
We have a full-service landscape business, and irrigation department and all of that also can help by coming out and doing those things, performing professional services for you, at your home as well.
While searching for the ideal place to assemble his full team, Mike was actually “dreaming a little smaller,” but decided he wanted to do something in the retail arena, including a storefront to create a place where people could anchor to his business as opposed to simply seeing his fleet of nearly 16 trucks chasing across the region every day.
He tells me, “With the facility here that was sitting vacant for several years, it provided an opportunity to buy something at a value that may not otherwise be there for something that was beautiful, built up and already sort of in it’s glory. And with our team we were able to kind of recreate some things that allowed us to provide a unique place for people to come.” He calls it “A sort of Co-op/Farm Bureau-Meets Outdoor Power-Meets Garden Center kind of feel.” He adds, “So for us it was thinking about how we could dream bigger, once something bigger was kind of on the table, and that’s what we did.”
That bigger enterprise now houses not only the retail space where he sells and services mowers, blowers and trimmers of all size, but everything from outdoor kitchens, firepits and patios, to full-tilt irrigation systems, tools, gloves, plants, fertilizers, and tons more. The center carries brands such as Gravely, Grasshopper, Ariens, Kohler, Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Briggs & Stratton.
Additionally, Mr. Villwock says, “We have a great staff. We run about 12 to 14 crews out on a daily basis.” Those crews work across multiple Villwock divisions including:
- The Landscape Maintenance Division (which is also the lawn maintenance & mowing division)
- The Irrigation Construction Division
- The Landscape Construction/Irrigation Service Division
- The Landscape Lighting Division
- The Hardscape Division
Mike started his first business of garden creations in 2003. He was a full-time Director of the Andrews University Arboretum & Grounds Department, for 10 years and grew up his own business at that same time. He says, “In 2014 was when I left my full-time job at Andrews to pursue my garden creations company. At that time I also bought another Southwest Michigan company, a full-service irrigation company named Turf Services, out of Dowagiac, and then teamed it with mine, brought on the staff and sent them to customers to grow in that way.” He notes that Turf Services was were probably twice the size of his own business, at that time, so he was able to grow quickly through acquisition, and range out his services a bit.
The party today formally welcoming Villwocks Outdoor Living is only the beginning, according to Mike. He says he has 40 acres on that site alone and he has plans to develop greenhouse production, field production and more over perhaps the next 3 to 5 years, and adds, “The long-range plan has a lot of development in for us in the green industry,” so the picture is far from complete.
You can find Villwock’s Outdoor Living at 8008 M-139. The phone number is 269-815-5415 for the Outdoor Living center, while his garden creations and turf services direct line is 269-815-5419. You can learn a lot more about the Villwock enterprise by clicking the link below:
http://VillwocksOutdoorLiving.com
