LISBON STORM SCREEN & DOOR HAS WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR
It’s a little hard to resist the word associations — port in a storm, screen time, swinging-door — for Lisbon Storm, Screen & Door. They make the name of the business as easy to recall as its location.
Thousands of customers visit the door store at 5006 W. Lisbon Ave. and online every week. The location is convenient for people coming in for, well, just about everything.
“We are the largest window and door supplier in Wisconsin, and we do anything pertaining to a door or window,” said co-owner and president David Wilhelm. “We’re also at the center of the action near North Avenue and right off Highway 175, which feeds straight from the northern suburbs into the city and onto Interstate 94.”
Wilhelm is serious about the variety and volume of stock that Lisbon Storm, Screen & Door handles. It carries more than 100 sizes of vinyl windows alone, all the hardware needed for installation and repair, in addition to one-of-a-kind doors and windows from centuries past.
It’s a well-known secret among competitors including big box stores, specialty suppliers and hardware stores, that Lisbon Storm can often provide what they can’t. About 3 percent of the business is in reclaimed windows and doors.
“You can buy a Rolls Royce window or an old beat-up window for interior decorating,” Wilhelm said. “People come to find the exact same door from the 1920s for replacement. I got a call this morning for small leaded glass windows that haven’t been made for years, and we had them.”
Wide variety of customers and needs
Businesses, homeowners, governments and landlords use the company’s products and services in everything from high rises to bungalows, apartment complexes, schools, and park and golf course buildings. Customers can get help with anything from a door for a U.S. Coast Guard ship to windows for a governor’s home.
Lisbon Storm also installs and repairs doors and windows on location, with customers as far away as California.
“People come here because they find answers,” Wilhelm said. “Sometimes someone needs to know that they only need a repair, not a replacement.”
Wilhelm said customer service is second to none, with major window manufacturers receiving guidance for seemingly insurmountable repair problems and small home owners getting help with door handles.
“Our post-sales service is the best I’ve ever seen,” Wilhelm said. “We respond real quickly to customers who need our help. It’s unbelievably important to us.”
Wilhelm said the expertise at Lisbon Storm extends to every employee, and the ownership and pride in their work runs deep.
“We have a great crew of incredibly knowledgeable people, and we have zero hiring and retention problems,” he said. “A lot of people have been here for decades. They are the absolute experts.”
The Lisbon Storm professionals have so much knowledge that they have even testified as forensic experts about how a window was broken based on the shatter pattern of the glass left behind.
Lisbon Storm Screen & Door has everything you need, right down to the hardware and tools.
A fixture in the community
The company’s roots began with a grocery store opened by Wilhelm’s grandfather, Lawrence Wilhelm, in 1945 in the Uptown District at 52nd Street and Lisbon Avenue. When a customer needed to replace some windows, Lawrence responded, and soon began repairing doors and windows. By 1961, he was operating the Lisbon Storm Screen and Door Company full time.
Lawrence sold the company to his sons Paul and Gerald in the mid-1980s. It was moved to the larger, current building in 1988. David and his brother Daniel bought the company from their father and uncle in 1998. At that time, annual revenue totaled about $3 million. It is now $13 million.
Over the decades, the owners have expanded the building and parking area by buying adjacent houses. But business has increased so much that Lisbon Storm is once again running out of space and will need to grow in size.
No matter how big it becomes, it will never be a big-box store.
“It’s just a unique business,” Wilhelm said. “Routinely we get comments from people who say, man this is really cool, I’ve never seen anything like this before. When I travel I try to search for someone like us, and I’ve never seen it either. We’re not the jack of all trades, we’re the master of one.”
There are no words to fully describe what it’s like to visit or work with Lisbon Storm, Screen & Door. Need we call it the ultimate uptown crossing … doorway to the business district? Wordplay aside, it’s definitely a valued destination for thousands of new and returning customers every month of the year.