Grady Cabinet Works closing after 76 years in Gainesville, Florida

After 76 years, a business that survived the ever-expanding changes of Gainesville is closing its doors for good.

Rick and Debbie Grady, owners of Grady Cabinet Works, at 1529 S. Main St., announced via Facebook on Monday that they are officially retiring and closing up the shop that was originally along Archer Road, long before throngs of people began shopping and dining in Butler Plaza.

“I didn’t want to just make cabinets. I wanted to make the best cabinets,” Rick Grady said. “I wanted people to have something and keep it for a long, long time. And I put my heart and soul into each and every one of them.”

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Rick’s father, Tom Grady, moved to Gainesville in late 1945 to attend law school at the University of Florida after serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He was placed on a waiting list, however, due to an influx of students exiting the military.

Stengel Field

Grady, his wife, Agnes, and their two daughters, Linda and Janice, elected to stay in Gainesville and lived in a trailer park behind Stengel Field, an airstrip near Archer Road owned by Carl Stengel, who taught Army pilots and UF students how to fly.

It was there that Grady, who had worked previously at a mill in the Florida panhandle, recognized the sounds of the machinery coming from one of the hangers. 

“He walked down there and asked Mr. Stengel for a job,” Rick Grady said. “He hired him on the spot.”

A short time later, Stengel offered to sell the business to Tom Grady under the agreement that Grady would pay him for it over time.

After paying off the business, Tom Grady moved the machines to a building at 1533 E. University Ave., where he continued to mill lumber for things such as doors, windows, cabinets and more.

“He touched a lot of buildings around here,” Rick Grady said.

Gainesville High School

Eventually, the elder Grady decided to construct the current building on South Main Street. He attended night school at Gainesville High School to learn architectural drafting. He then designed the spacious building that has been home to Grady Cabinet Works since 1967.

During this time, Rick Grady, who was born in December 1953, said he spent his days as a child at home, at school or at the mill. He said he loved being around his father’s employees.

“They loved my dad,” he said. “We were family.”

After graduating from GHS, Rick Grady joined the Army as a military police officer and served for 7 ½ years. Grady said he anticipated staying in law enforcement after leaving the service, but his heart was in a different place.

“It kept drawing me back in,” Rick Grady said of the mill. “I wanted to leave something that my father built and I wanted to keep it going as far as I could.”

Rick Grady said he and his wife took complete control of the business in 1988, and as millwork and things like wooden windows began to die off, he said he had a plan to specialize in custom cabinetry.

One of the Gradys’ more high-profile customers was pioneering surrealist photographer Jerry Uelsmann, who died in April at age 87.

With the help of technology, Rick and Debbie, along with an installer, have spent the last 20 years running the business themselves. Now that they are retiring, Rick Grady said they plan to take time to travel and relax.

Grady has already begun to sell his equipment, and he said he already has a contract to sell the property, which is scheduled to close next week.

“It wasn’t really a hard, thought-out thing,” Rick Grady said of retiring. “It was like, ‘You know, I’m ready to kind of cut this thing loose, and let’s get on with life and enjoy our retirement and our remaining years.'”