About this episode
In 2019, Lake Michigan hit the highest water level ever recorded in history. Shoreline bluffs were eroding, homes were sliding toward the water, and property values were collapsing. Mason Kuipers was a senior at Hope College when a family friend's house was about to fall into the lake.That emergency phone call started Lakeshore Customs.Mason and his brother Clayton began filling 50-foot-long geotextile sandbags using a sand-water slurry technique and Honda trash pumps to protect the toe of Lake Michigan bluffs from further erosion. They worked through winter nights, waded into the lake in wetsuits, and eventually bought the equipment themselves in April 2020, right as COVID shut everything down.Six years later, they have 20 employees, a new showroom with VR technology, and one of the most specialized luxury outdoor living companies on the Great Lakes.We met Mason at the International Builder Show after Mason donated $1,000 to Saint Jude's Children's Hospital. That kind of character demands a conversation and this episode delivers it.
