Reiche’s path to stairbuilding began with two woodworking grandfathers, a father who built homes, and a curiosity for craft that eventually led him to study studio art at Wheaton College. “I focused on metal, wood, and glass, but by the end, I wanted to go deep in one medium. I picked wood,” he says. Self-taught beyond the basics, he gravitated toward fine woodworking, drawn to the precision and patience it demands.

His exposure to staircases continued while working in finish carpentry for a general contractor restoring historic homes. He eventually found himself deep in a YouTube rabbit hole that introduced him to Jed Dixon, a legendary New England stairbuilder. “My wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I told her I wanted to meet Jed,” Reiche laughs. “She made it happen. And Jed basically said, ‘Yeah, you can build your life around this.’ That really stuck with me.”

Reiche officially launched Maine Stair Company three years ago, and today he runs the business out of Portland with a small, skilled team. Though he’s based in Maine, he’s completed projects in Boston and California and is considering upcoming jobs in New Hampshire, New York, and Connecticut. From sweeping curved staircases to sculptural handrails, each design is engineered with a blend of intuition, calculation, and dedication to quality. “There are building codes, sure, but we try to go way beyond the minimum. We want our work to last hundreds of years,” Reiche says.

At the 2025 Stairbuilders and Manufacturers Association Conference, Maine Stair Company took home three awards: Best Curved Stair, People’s Choice, and Best Straight Stair for a project in South Bristol. That staircase, part of a project built by Knickerbocker Group (A Traditional Take, page 60) marked a turning point in Reiche’s journey. The architect, Glenn Keyes, was based in the Carolinas, and the two were connected through another stair friend Reiche met on Instagram. “It was my first really big project, and I tackled most of it solo,” Reiche recalls. “Most of the parts were made in-house, by hand, which is pretty unique in this business.”

Instagram, it turns out, has played a surprisingly central role in Maine Stair Company’s growth. “There’s this whole underground stair community,” Reiche says. “Once I started posting, these stair freaks came out of the woodwork, sharing tips and cheering each other on. It’s really become the center of our life.”

That community-minded ethos extends to every client interaction. A recent favorite project of Reiche’s involved working with Sten Havumaki of Biddeford’s Oak and Laurel Workshop to install a sculptural handrail for an 86-year-old woman to go up three steps in her home. “She loved shells and Thomas Moser furniture, so we blended both ideas,” he says. “When we finished up, she said to us, ‘Are all your customers this happy? This is beyond anything I could have imagined.’ That’s the kind of impact I want to make.”