BELLWEATHER. Twenty years ago, Daniel Mercer opened a one-room office above a Front Street bakery with a hand-lettered sign and a plan to "build things worth keeping." Today, Mercer Developments is the best-known builder in Bellweather County.

The firm's fingerprints are across town: the Riverside Community Centre, a dozen Front Street restorations, and, if council approves, the redevelopment of the old Vale Mill lands.

"Bellweather made me," Mr. Mercer said in an interview at the company's offices. "Every project I take on, I ask whether my grandmother would have been proud to walk past it."

The company has not been without controversy. Its expansion has occasionally put it at odds with heritage advocates and neighbours, and the Vale Mill proposal has drawn questions from some residents. Mr. Mercer says he welcomes the scrutiny.

Colleagues describe a hands-on operator who keeps unusually close control of the firm's finances. Chief financial officer Marcus Bell, who has been with the company for eight years, called Mr. Mercer "the most careful man I've ever worked for."

The company employs eighteen people and is, by Mr. Mercer's account, "just getting started."