Architectural Sheet Metal is a widely used building material, appreciated industry-wide for its structural integrity, design versatility, cost-effectiveness, and fire resistance. It’s an in-demand building service and many companies across North America are proficient in providing it, but what’s harder to come by is the high-end application of it. Chicago-based roofing contractor Conrad Roofing has been in business for almost eighty years, during which it has carved its name as a high-end specialty restoration and sheet metal contractor. This has been particularly true since 1998 when Bogdan Bosak, having first worked with sheet metal in Poland and Germany in the nineties, took over the company from its original owners and found the niche he’d been searching for. Backed by years of experience and with a new vision, Bogdan set out to steer the company towards Chicago’s high-end roofing market. Conrad’s new CEO Wade Tutt, shares in Bogdan’s belief that roofs should be both functional and attractive.
Being in business for almost eight decades, Conrad Roofing has seen the industry shift from the traditional craftsmanship that defined the old world to the heavily automated way of the new and has responded by investing in a high-end fleet of computerized brakes and equipment. From its home in Illinois, Conrad was the first roofing contractor in Chicago to have and now operates a fully automated metal shop with German-manufactured computerized machinery like brakes and slitters which allows it to offer detailed fabrication of any design while staying true to old world craftsmanship. While Conrad Roofing appreciates that this new technology has been crucial in advancing the construction industry, it knows from experience that there are still some jobs that demand customized and intricate finishes that no machine is capable of achieving. Conrad Roofing’s service offering and allows it to keep up with the demands of the modern construction industry, it does not make redundant the more traditional method of craftmanship. “We can do 75% of our jobs with that machine,” Wade says, “but it’s that 25% that no computer is ever going to be able to replicate. That’s when the guys are sitting there with a small mallet and a leather pad, and they’re stamping the metal into a shape to match that old historical detail.” It is rare in today’s world of advanced technology and automated machinery that we see craft work in its traditional art form. That is, people making things with tools. “We’ve been a Craftsman focused company for almost 80 years,” Wade says. “Depending on the time of the year, we have a team of ten to fifteen craftsmen. Some of the guys have been with us for almost 30 years and the majority of them are Eastern European Artisans. We have about five guys who, depending on the complexity of the job, will sit around a fabrication table and take small pieces of copper, zinc, you name the metal, and fabricate even the smallest, most intricate brackets and finials to give a fine architectural detail. We’re one of a handful of companies in the whole Chicago Greater Metropolitan area that can do that type of work.”
“Depending on the time of the year, we have a team of ten to fifteen craftsmen. Some of the guys have been with us for almost 30 years and the majority of them are Eastern European Artisans. We have about five guys who, depending on the complexity of the job, will sit around a fabrication table and take small pieces of copper, zinc, you name the metal, and fabricate even the smallest, most intricate brackets and finials to give a fine architectural detail.”
Conrad Roofing’s knack for intricate craftsmanship has naturally led the company into the historical restoration sector, which forms a large part of its portfolio today. Whether that’s the restoration of one of Chicago’s Landmark buildings, or a new construction building that seeks to respect the historical area which surrounds it, Conrad Roofing has the skillset and the resources to ensure the job is done with care and attention. “We’ve got a team of guys that have been with us for over twenty years who can ensure the level of craftsmanship they learned in the old world is brought over to this one,” Wade says. Conrad Roofing has provided its high-end restoration services to Residential and Commercial projects across Chicago, establishing itself as a trusted name that rolls off the tongue when an architect is called in for this type of specialized work. “We’ve won a number of awards from the City of Chicago’s Landmark Association and that’s something we’re very proud of,” Wade says. “A lot of the architects in the city reach out to us when they’re looking for old properties to be restored, and we’ve subsequently been recognized for that.” Conrad Roofing’s notable achievements include the City of Chicago Preservation Excellence Award and the Oak Park Historic Preservation Award, both of which are reflective of the company’s established reputation in the field.
The profile of the award-winning company was raised even higher when HGTV, the network for home improvement and real estate programming, asked the team at Conrad Roofing to be part of a television broadcast about a Civil War-era flat restoration project they were doing in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood. The broadcast highlighted the complexities involved in blending historic and modern home design, and the opportunities presented by Conrad Roofing in making this happen seamlessly. “They were trying to match detail from a building that was built in the 1800s,” Wade says, “so we dismantled the decorative cornice, brought it back to the shop, and then re-fabricated it in sheet metal.” Another notable project for the company was the exterior restoration of the Goodman Mansion, which is a mansion in an old historical neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. “That was a cornerstone project for us,” Wade says of the mansion that was originally built by the Goodman family in 1892. “We refabricated a significant amount of metal work on that, and we replaced the roof.” Conrad has restored many original properties built by some of Chicago’s most famous founding families over their 78 year history. Religious buildings by nature are both historical and intricate in design, and so the restoration of such buildings require a level of care and detail that only companies like Conrad Roofing, with its team of skilled craftsmen, can provide. “We’ve done a lot of work for the Chicago Archdioceses,” Wade says. “We just finished a large project for a Methodist Church out in the Chicago suburbs where we installed glazed Ludowici tiles, so that roof will last for 100 or so years.” The company has worked on two buildings that were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a respected American Architect who left a footprint of unique architecture in Chicago in the early 1900s. Shining further light on the company’s high-end book of work, Wade says, without providing too much detail, that “not many people can say they got to replace the roof on the home of a living president.”
Wade’s account of Conrad Roofing’s project portfolio only scratches the surface of what the company has achieved in its eight-decade long tenure in the Chicago roofing market. It’s projects and awards are sustained by a skilled and experienced team who, one roof at a time, continue to maintain both the functionality and the aesthetics of Chicago’s historical landscape. “We’ve always been known as a very historic company with a well-known brand of artists, but we’ve never really focused on growth,” Wade says. “Since I’ve taken the business over, we’ve really focused on the professionalization of the company by moving out of the paper era so to speak, and into the digital age. We’re starting to use a lot of technology to grow our business, and this month we’re launching a residential division for the first time. We’ve started to onboard a team of restoration consultants that are going to take that same level of craftsmanship that we’ve been doing on these high-end homes and bringing it to single family property owners in the Chicagoland area, because that segment of the industry is one thing that’s grossly missing in Chicago.” Wade quotes Bogdan when he says, “there’s nothing more important than your name in history.” It’s a sentiment that represents Conrad Roofing’s respect for the history that came before it, the part it plays in preserving that history through the restoration of landmark buildings, and the lasting company legacy it will one day leave behind. “Not a lot of roofing contractors in the Chicago market look at themselves as Craftsmen in the way that we do,” he says. “We want to really cement Conrad Roofing’s legacy for the next 80 years with diversified products, offering historical as well as modern solutions for a timeless look while also being very intentional about our approach to growth.”
