Profile: Gary Klifman

By Dawne Belloise

Gary Klifman of Red Mountain Logworks moved to Crested Butte almost 30 years ago and has always been a worker, but that was after a lot of different jobs. He was a surfer boy growing up near Huntington Beach, California, and with Mammoth, Big Bear and Tahoe not too far away he recalls that he could be surfing one day and skiing the next. He learned to ski at the age of seven. His family, being ski enthusiasts, took vacations to Aspen, so Gary was no stranger to Colorado and this side of the Rockies. At 13 years old, his family moved to Thousand Oaks, California, where Gary did well in school. He says because he was a bigger kid, he was always being encouraged and sought after to play sports, however, he was far too busy working at his father’s meat market in Oxnard. He received work credits from school and realized that “between working, surfing and skiing, I wasn’t going to play sports to try to get scholarships. I saw my buddies doing that and they had no time for fun and no money,” he laughs. He bought his first car when he turned 16, a Toyota pickup with surfboard racks and a camper shell, “like a little surf mobile” he says. Gary graduated from high school in 1977.

Gary knew he wasn’t going to college, because he was learning how to run a business through his father’s meat market, Rancho Meats, and by the time he was 19, he was managing that shop. His father had decided to open a restaurant, so Gary was working full time as a butcher at the meat market right out of high school. He moved to the Ventura area to be closer to work and was living the beach life there for six years. At 21 years old, Gary was married and had a daughter, Amy, born in 1981. “Responsibility kicked in, so I didn’t have much time to play. It was all about working and providing,” he says.

 After the divorce from his first wife, he met his second wife and had Garrett in 1987. His father sold the meat market and Gary went to work as a butcher for another shop. Afterward, he bought a house in the high desert of Victorville, just west of Barstow, and worked at an ice plant where he learned how to make block ice, fix the machines, “and did what I had to do to feed the kids.” Later, he was hired as an electrostatic painting technician. “It’s a metal paint application, like powder coating. I was traveling all over southern California doing that work because it paid fantastic.” 

After his second marriage ended, Gary met Lisa, and they had their daughter, Angel, who was born in 1991. Gary’s dad had moved to Crested Butte and had bought Coal Creek Sports as well as the Grubstake. Gary’s first trip to CB was in 1990 to attend his dad’s wedding. “I frikkin’ loved it! What wasn’t to love?” So, when things didn’t work out with Lisa, Gary also moved to CB in 1996. He moved into his dad’s cabin up Cement Creek. His father had sold both businesses and was looking for something to do, Gary says, “And that’s how Red Mountain Logworks got started.”

Gary’s dad was making swings out of logs he foraged in the woods, with his workshop being a small shed behind the cabin. Gary started painting houses for John LaDuke Painting and later, he and a friend started their own painting business. “It kept paying the bills but the log furniture business starting growing. We needed a bigger shop so about a year later we moved the shop to the old Niccoli Ranch’s heated garage. We were renting the shop, and we lived in the cabin.” But the property wasn’t zoned for the type of business they were doing, it was agricultural. “The county had an issue with that. It was a little frustrating.” They were there for two years when their current place on Highway 135 came up for sale. “It was zoned correctly, we got our ducks in a row and bought the place in 2001.” 

Their business of creating log furniture was booming and growing and they now had a couple of employees in their larger shop, and before where they couldn’t have a sign, they installed, “A big ol’ legal sign,” Gary grins. They collected their logs from various sources, Gary tells, “​​Sometimes we found property owners who wanted the dead pine and aspen cleaned up. We also got permits from the forest service to collect dead trees from local stands to mitigate fire hazard areas and promote new growth. We exclusively wanted dead standing trees as they would be best for our furniture and deck railings because they have little moisture content and are ready to use. We never cut any live trees.”

Gary emphasizes that all the furniture is handmade. “We skin the logs with old-school draw knives,” he explains of the Adirondack inspired furniture that originated in 1903 in the mountains of upstate New York. “But we tweaked that design and made what we think is a more comfortable sit,” he says, and they call their modified style Rocky Mountain Adirondacks.

Gary explains that they were lucky because then CBMR owners, the Mueller family, had branded their CBMR look after their furniture. “They started buying our furniture for the resort. Our chairs are still up there along with ski and bike racks.” Since then, Vail Resorts has also bought furniture from Red Mountain Logworks and their furniture also lines Elk Avenue businesses. “By 2005, we were rocking.” 

Gary was selling furniture through Bass Pro, a large corporation that also owns Cabela’s. “The only reason I got that opportunity was because I had sold to the owner personally back in 2007.” He explains, “he bought a bunch of furniture for his house on the Frying Pan River over by Aspen.” Two years later, the owner’s wife put in a large order for their deer hunting lodge and sent a semi. “We filled that thing up to take to his lodge in Montana,” he remembers. They then offered to include the Red Mountain Logworks line of furniture in their online catalogs. 

Gary’s dad retired in 2012. Riding that rollercoaster of love, Gary and Lisa reunited in 1998 and she and all the kids (two of hers and their daughter Angel), moved to Crested Butte, split up the following year, remarried in 2006, divorcing and reuniting again through the years. “She is truly the love of my life,” he smiles. 

Gary says he moved here because of the skiing and learned to snowboard in 1999. After breaking his pelvis in a horse accident in 2016, he says he doesn’t ski as much. “Fishing is what I do, I mostly ice fish. It’s my passion, and I hunt. I don’t hunt for horns but for the goodness of the meat and fish.” He also enjoys ocean fishing, and visits South Padre Island, Cabo and Florida. “I love to fish.” 

In their 29 years in business with Red Mountain Logworks and living here, Gary says he never looked back and now, at this summer’s end, he too plans to take his well-earned retirement.