The company’s founder, Kent Forsland, previously founded a steel garage door company. In the late 1980s, he noticed two great things about carriage doors from the 1880s through the 1920s:

1. They complemented the home’s architectural details and other exterior doors.
2. Even though the doors were about 100 years old, they were solid, functional, and usually 90 percent rot-free.

This sharply contrasted with the wood garage doors manufactured in the 1970–1980’s, which did not complement the architecture, and would literally fall apart as they were removed from the home.

Through his business, Kent met many homeowners desiring the appearance of authentic carriage doors, but requiring the functionality and convenience of push-button overhead operation.

Kent saw a market opportunity. He started with the heritage of handcrafted garage doors designed and built to complement the home’s architectural details including window shapes, sizes and clusters; then he added the innovation of push-button overhead operation by building the door with nearly invisible horizontal section breaks.

Soon, customers were asking for walk-through or service doors to match or complement their garage doors and our Architectural Harmony™ message grew even stronger.

Today, we are pleased to expand our offerings to other significant elements on the home’s exterior, namely entranceways, shutters and garden gates.

Why choose Designer Doors to help bring harmony to your home? Why, we’ve been doing it all along...it’s our heritage.