Chicago company, family make Melrose move

La Crosse Tribune, Jan 25, 1999

MELROSE, Wis. -- When Woodworkers' Tool Knourek Works owner Robert Jr. wants to relax by doing a little fishing, the Chicago-area native doesn't have to travel far.

Knourek can grab a fishing pole and head to the two trout ponds he created behind the converted dairy barn where he manufactures and sharpens woodworking tooling -- such as custom knives, router bits and blades for the furniture industry.

When relatives or customers need a place to stay, he can put them up in the roomy suite he created in the barn's hay loft with local pine wood and textured drywall. They can look through the suite's big picture window at the tree-covered hills behind tie farm buildings.

Or they can play in the old hay loft's game room, which features farm scene paintings, a GI Joe doll suspended from a tiny parachute that hangs from the ceiling, a wild boar's head on the wall and a bar.

If they're turkey or deer hunting in the area, friends and relatives also can stay in the more spartan hunter's cabin Knourek created in the small building that used to be a summer kitchen.

Office manager Sandy Klinger lives in an apartment in what used to be the farm's granary.

And Knourek's office is in what used to be the farm's machine shed. A mounted pheasant, mounted duck, a 1954 Woodworkers' Tool Works calendar and other memorabilia decorate the walls of his office, where old Woodworkers' catalogs also are on display. And Knourek still uses the old rolltop wooden desk that belonged to his great-grandfather, William Knourek, who founded the company in Chicago in 1907.

His two office dogs, Woody, a black Labrador, and Greenlee, a Samoyed, hang out behind the counter.

Knourek and his wife Cathy decided to leave the Windy City for a rural lifestyle, and looked for farmland in Illinois and Wisconsin. In 1995, he bought 50 acres and the buildings on what had been the Joe Lien farm about 10 miles north of Melrose, and went to work renovating and remodeling.

Today, the Knoureks, both 32, live in the old Lien farm house with their daughter, Naomi, 8, and sons Dakota, 6, and Clayton "Frankie," who is 4.

Knourek, who bought the company from his father in 1991, said it was in various Chicago-area locations through the years. "The landlord wouldn't sell us the building and property was very expensive in Illinois," he said. "And we didn't have to be in Illinois," because most of his business is conducted by telephone, fax, e-mail and shippers such as United Parcel Service.

"It was a family decision to move to a farm that could be used for both work and play," Knourek said.

Knourek still pays to keep the various Chicago-area phone numbers listed in old Woodworkers' Tool Works catalogs. Phone calls are automatically forwarded from Chicago to the rural Jackson County acreage.

He sells and services tooling for major furniture companies such as Ashley, Ethan Allen and Lazy-Boy, along with many area woodworking companies and lumber mills. The company has thousands of customers, mostly in the United States, Knourek said.

"We supply dealers as well as end-users," Knourek said.

Cathy Knourek drives to cabinet shops and furniture factories between Black River Falls and La Crosse, delivering and picking up tooling and other equipment.

Within the next year, Knourek said, he will add "computer numerically controlled" equipment to his manufacturing operation. "It will give us a faster turnaround and better accuracy," he said.