About Us

  Meet Brad and Karen Kirschenman

Their story..........

Our story had a late start after meeting first in 1993 through a mutual friend. We were both single with 5 kids combined, enjoyed the same sports, loved to travel and we were both looking for a fresh start. We fell in love and were married in 1998 and bought our first home together that same year in Beaumont Alberta. This home was a beautiful show home with a great bi-level floor plan but with our large family we found the formal dinning room was never used and everyone congregated in the kitchen. Before we knew it, we were renovating by taking out the dining room wall and making a huge open concept space which we did ourselves and loved it. Once the kids started moving and we didn’t have the need for 3 bedrooms up we renovated once more by making our bedroom and ensuite larger by using one of the bedrooms. Again, everything turned out just the way we wanted and updated the space to become more functionable for us. Brad is a journeyman carpenter and is very capable of doing renovations or virtually anything we want to build or change.

Brad grew up in Lethbridge Ab and worked with his father who was a general contractor. They built homes, 4 story walkup apartments and had numerous renovation jobs in the 1970’s and 80’s. Brad was then framing houses in Beaumont in the 90’s and then his career took him up north. Part of his job was to teach the indigenous people home building skills on a native reserve at John D’Or Prairie in the Peace River area. Brad went on to become the superintendent and estimator of a small family run construction company that specialized in schools, churches and mostly commercial renovations. When the owners retired their business Brad started with Fancy Doors and Mouldings where he was a commercial and residential sales rep for 9 years dealing with the major hotels and high-rise developers suppling doors, hardware and finishing products. Brad left there in June of 2020. Brad is currently working for Mtech Locks where he has the Southern Alberta zone. He sells door locks systems with the tap cards for hotels and motels. With the carpentry skills Brad has he always found himself volunteering for odd jobs with the kids’ sports groups as well as ours building whatever was needed.

Karen grew up partly in Manitoba then moved to Alberta in 1970 for her father’s job in the oil field. Karen is a bookkeeper with her own business and worked for the family drill bit business for 40 years that her father began in 1979 in the oil and gas industry in Nisku. That family business closed in May 2020. Throughout the years of the kids’ sports clubs and different activities Karen almost always found herself in the volunteer position of Treasurer of many clubs throughout the years. Adult sports groups were always in need of the “money girl”. Karen is still active in bookkeeping being able to work with most of her clients from the lake. Her years of business experience will be an asset for this new company.

In September of 2014 we came out to Whispering Pines for a golf play and stay for the long weekend and absolutely fell in love with WP. A few weekends later came back out again and took the tour of WP and bought Lot # 5025. For the next 5 summers we were weekenders. We really enjoyed our time here and this community is like no other where you meet people that will be your friends for life after only knowing them a short time. Like minded, kindhearted people and a very giving community. We knew that 5 years down the road we would build our lake home on what we think is one of the most beautiful lots here. The view from our deck is breathtaking. Oh, did we mention we live on a golf course, stunning!

Our home construction started in October 2019. We took over the house at the drywalled/primed stage in March and continued to finish our home ourselves. Our good friends Merv and Mona had their park model available for rent, so we were able to come out in the cooler months to work on the house. You can see photos in our gallery of our home and the finishes we did to make this home unique and ours. We absolutely love this lake house.

Merv and Mona Giles had built many homes here at WP and on their last build they hired Brad and I to assist where needed. During that time together they started discussions about the possibility of home building for others here at the lake and then “Lakeside Signature Homes Ltd” was launched. 

With the knowledge and experience of the four of us, Merv, Mona, Brad and Karen you will not be disappointed in choosing Lakeside as the  builder for your future home. This home will be “Uniquely Built for You”.