As a sister company of Wallpaper Loft, Elgin Carpet One Floor & Home shares its heritage linked to a Dutch family that threw caution to the wind and saw Canada as their future.
Denise Versteeg and her brother Michael, third generation family members, operate Elgin Carpet One and reflect on that leap of faith.
“At some point, somebody decided Canada was going to be a great place to come and live and either be a part of something or start their own business,” noted Denise.
“And of course, our family decided that that was the way they wanted to go. And obviously with Jan (Versteeg) starting the business and then our grandfather, George, joining in a little bit later. It’s a great tradition to be a part of, really.”
She continued, “I think as Canadian business owners, we heard Canadians loud and clear. They wanted to support Canadian businesses. They wanted to support Canadian manufacturers. So that’s something that we’ve done on the flooring side.
“We are looking towards our Canadian suppliers, looking towards Canadian manufactured goods. And we’ve had a really positive response from customers to that.”
And supporting and giving back to the community is paramount to the Versteeg family.
“I mean, this whole being neighborly and being part of community, I mean, that is kind of the Canadian identity,” suggested Denise.
“And so being able to be part of this community for as long as we have, we recognize people and faces, and people recognize us as well. We’ve had some longstanding staff members.
Actually, last year we just had somebody retire who’d been with us for 36 years. So it’s been a really great tradition in that respect.”
Her brother elaborated on the importance of community involvement.
“Being local community members as well, we’re fortunate enough to work with local contractors and homebuilders in the St. Thomas area. And some of the home builders that we deal with, this business has been dealing with them longer than I’ve been on this earth. So that goes to show that we are deeply connected with the community here.
“And yeah, we’ve got an excellent customer base who just keeps coming back to us.”
However, the family is not one to rest on its laurels.
“It’s funny you talk about the future because we’ve got some big things in store. So it’s interesting because as we mentioned before how Jan started this business late 1960s, kind of working out of his garage, he was mostly spurred on by the fact that at that time Ford was constructing or had already constructed its assembly plant over in Talbotville.
“So the reasoning from Jan was that there’s a lot of people who have to work at that factory, they’re going to need new homes, every home needs flooring.
“And so here we are again in 2025 where Volkswagen and PowerCo are coming to town. And with that battery plant coming, we know that there’s going to be a large influx of people, potentially thousands of people moving to town.
“So we’re about to break ground on an expansion of our current location at 1026 Talbot Street. We’re going to have an expanded showroom, additional office spaces, larger warehouse, basically everything we need to make sure that we can continue to service the needs of our community.”
As to when ground will be broken he advised, “Well, not soon enough. The short answer is it should start sometime this summer, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. But yeah, ideally within the next 12 to 18 months, there’s going to be a lot of action happening at our location.”
Read more about Elgin Carpet One and their extensive product lines at www.elgincarpetonestthomas.ca
You can listen to our conversation below.
Written by Ian McCallum
