As I mentioned, I grew up on a farm. At a young age, my brother Dan and I would drive 9 miles with a horse and buggy to work for Tradewinn Farms, cleaning horse stalls one or two days per week. Tradewinn Farms was a Standardbred racehorse breeding farm, and soon I became very attached to the foals and their natural abilities. I was always trying to figure out what they were thinking and started keeping records of which foals went on to become good racehorses.

Years later, after I moved to Beach City, Ohio, and was working for Paint Valley Hardwoods, one evening, a friend, John Weaver, and I drove to Adamsville, Ohio, to visit a friend. When we walked into the barn, I leaned over one horse’s stall, stared at the horse in silence, and John looked at me and said, “What?” My response was, “This is one serious horse.” Yes, I ended up buying the horse for $1,700.

After buying the mare and looking at her bloodlines, I was amazed by what I found. The mare had one foal, and that first foal ended up in America’s top trotting race, where the purse was $1.5 million. So, I bred the mare back to the same stallion. The resulting foal was a full brother to the first foal that raced in the Hambletonian for $1.5 million. I was excited to own a full brother to a foal that had raced that well. Yes, I sold that foal for $75,000. For someone working for $12 per hour, that was a lot of money. That foal was reported as the highest-priced SJ Caviar sired yearling ever sold at that time.

Right after selling this Colt, the owner of Amish Exteriors, Firman Mast, asked me to work for him as a roofing salesman. I took the job, and with my construction and mechanic experience, it turned out to be the perfect fit for a salesman. After working for Amish Exteriors for three years, I decided to start my own company, Amish Commercial Builders. After climbing a few hills and crossing a few valleys, it turned out to be the right thing to do.

Then, the third foal out of the mare was born on Easter. I named him Easter King. He was my favorite foal of all time—muscular, powerful, and with a hilarious attitude. When the time came to put him in training, after his first baby races, I sent him to the legendary trainer, Ake Svanstedt, to continue his training. He had two more starts as a two-year-old and won both races.

Long story short, he got injured as a three-year-old and only had a few starts after that. Through Easter King, I became best friends with Ake and his wife, Sarah Svanstedt. In fact, I would almost consider them family. They own farms in Florida, New Jersey, and Kentucky, and they’ve hired me to work on all of their farms over the years.

In 2021, Ake asked me to get him a quote to replace all of the house trailers on their farm in New Jersey. They also provide housing for the caretakers of the horses. I looked at a few trailer factories and didn’t like the cheap way they were built. I talked to Ake, and he asked me to draw something up and send it to him with a price. That’s what I did, building seven duplex housing units in Ohio and moving them to New Jersey.

It wasn’t an easy task, especially since I had no experience hauling houses, but I took the risk, and it all worked out with no problems—thank God! Then, my mind started spinning, thinking about all the homelessness and housing shortages in America. I realized I needed to design a top-quality, two-bedroom, one-bathroom house that fits investor programs, is high quality, and energy efficient. And that’s how Shetler’s Legendary Homes was started.

As you can see Amish Commercial Builders and Shetler’s Legendary Homes can be traced back to this one $1,700 horse!