Luxury at home

Scott and Melissa Coleman see profit in faded paint, nail holes, and rust stains. Their company, La Puerta Originals, turns antique and reclaimed wood and scrap metal into custom-made doors for high-end homes. More than 6,000 doors, collected from around the world, jostle for space on their four-acre property in Santa Fe, and each slab comes with its own provenance.

"The process for our customers is more involved than simply opening a catalog," says Scott, an architect by training. "I walk with them, take them to the wood, and tell them the story behind it."

A recent La Puerta project - an $8,000 hammered-tin door for a house in Santa Fe - features a metal disc stripped from an antique farming tool that the Colemans found while driving through Mexico's Sierra Nevada.

"The collecting of materials is a passion unto itself," says Scott, whose company pulls in annual revenue of $4.4 million. "There is no piece of wood too small." - Malika Zouhali-Worrall

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