Clearly Innovative

For years—decades actually—California Shower Door Corporation (CSDC) has been the greater Bay Area’s go-to-company for custom-made, precision designed and installed frameless shower doors. 

Their chosen niche, working with tempered glass, is an unforgiving one. Being even one eighth of an inch off on a project means junking the expensive glass and starting over. Thomas J. Nolan, the hands-on CEO of CSDC, makes his bones getting it right the first time. They never start over. 

But in the past 18 months, the company known for creating exactly what customers want with their patented “Majestic” 100 percent steam and water tight shower enclosures, has been starting some new endeavors. CSDC is still working with big sheets of glass, that’s in their blood—Thomas has worked at CSDC since 1981 when he was a student at St. Ignatius College Preparatory—and what challenges his 24 employees who work on jobs from Healdsburg to Sacramento to Carmel. Now, however, they’re building windscreens and crafting glass banisters for stairways even as they develop a business in custom mirrors for fitness centers, spas and residences.

Nolan admits he was apprehensive about moving into new areas. The more than 70-year-old CSDC started the trend of using thick, frameless glass to create custom-made swinging shower doors in the mid-80s. “I felt we were really, really, really good at what we did,” he says. But as high-end residential contractors he worked with kept asking him to turn his glass working skills to windscreens and stairways, he acquiesced to preserve and strengthens long-term relationships. 

“The skills from making custom shower enclosures translated nicely,” he says. “We’re used to working with little or no tolerance. Now, it’s exciting for us because we have a bright, creative crew.”

They’ve installed windscreens on rooftops in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhoods, allowing homeowners to take advantage of Golden Gate Bridge views without being blown away. They’ve also installed glass windscreens on multistory Victorians, turning an unused deck into an outdoor extension of the home. Most of the windscreens are clear glass but some clients prefer glass that can provide privacy.

“It’s highly customized work,” says Nolan. Even though most of the screens are built of glass in rectangles or squares linked by wood or metal fixtures, “there’s no out-of-the-book system, so each is individually created.” The CSDC crews, who have owned the company since 2003, took to stairway work just as enthusiastically as they did to windscreens even though it involves working with glass cut in more complex shapes, such as parallelograms. After measuring, they make templates before cutting the glass. They know to take the time to make it right. “It’s tricky because of the irregular shapes of the glass.” Making it even trickier are the angles in the staircase. 

As for CSDC’s work with mirrors, it again involves their skills at precisely cutting and fitting glass. But what happens if a mirror breaks? The first time anyone breaks a mirror, and they break more easily than the laminated and tempered safety glass used in other project, they may get spooked, Nolan says. Then they realize that two or three mirrors break a week. “So we don’t worry about the seven-year curse. It doesn’t apply when you work with mirrors.”

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