Passing the baton

After more than 35 years helping Crestonians design their dream home, Dave and Cinda Long are retiring to a life of travel and family. Taking their places are Chris and Megan Sobotka, the new owners of the American Home Design Center.

Dave and Chris have known each other for about 15 years, first meeting when when Chris was doing the flooring on one of Dave’s new builds. The friendship continued through the years, leading to a new opportunity for Chris.

“And then seven or eight months ago, I was in Corning and found out he was actually really trying to sell it,” Chris said. “I came over and we talked about it, and here we are.”

Though the Sobotkas live in Pleasantville, Chris’s family is from the Mount Ayr area, so they’re very familiar with Creston.

“We’ve lived in Pleasantville for the past 16 years or so,” Megan said. “We still live there and plan on just making the commute.” The couple have three kids, whom they say are deeply involved at school there.

While Chris isn’t hugely familiar with design work, he said buying the business felt like the next right move.

“I moved into general contracting about 10 years ago. This is just kind of the next step, natural progression of things. We’ll see where it goes from here,” Chris said.

Chris said he isn’t planning on changing much yet. Instead, he’ll keep the Longs’ model for a while before expanding into any new areas. American Home Design Center is already largely expanded from what it started out as with the Longs.

“We stared about ‘88 and we had a small shop off of Maple. Then we went to Pine and then Elm. When we moved, we gathered more products,” Dave said. “Then we we bought this in 2000, this old power plant. By the time we got it remodeled, it was June 2003.”

Dave was building and remodeling homes before that, beginning around 1979. “I saw the need for buying stuff and making a home design center, home-related products. We gathered stuff as we went and it just fit,” Dave said.

Cinda explained their son took over the home-building business in 2017, leaving them with the design center.

Now that they’re retired, Dave and Cinda are looking forward to traveling and spending time with their 14 grandchildren. However, they’re grateful for all the people who have helped their business flourish.

“So many people that have supported us, people who have worked for us and bought products from us,” Cinda said. “It takes a whole community to support a business like this.”

The American Home Design Center will continue with the same hours as previously held. The center is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. through 4:30 p.m.