GATES MILLS — Kathy Vegh Hughes is the last person you would expect to keep chickens. Often sporting a dress and high heels, she does not wear a typical outfit one might expect to enter her chicken coop. She took her business experience, love of animals and sense of style to create Cutest Coops, a custom chicken coop business that exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mrs. Hughes and her husband, Anthony, moved to Gates Mills from the west side of Cleveland seven years ago. When their daughter, Olive, turned 3 in 2016, Mrs. Hughes bought three chickens named Snap, Crackle and Pop. Their first chicken coop was not a quality product, she said, and barely made it through the winter. It fell apart in a year, so Mrs. Hughes designed her own luxury, walk-in chicken coop and Amish workers built it. Her personal coop has garden boxes and a refrigerator inside, making it a gathering place for friends and family.
“Having a background in home goods makes me dangerous when it comes to products I don’t like,” Mrs. Hughes, 44, said. “I’m constantly trying to improve them.”
She ran Danny Vegh’s, a family business selling billiards and home entertainment furniture, for 19 years. Mrs. Hughes said that all five locations, including one in Mayfield Heights, were national award-winning showrooms throughout the 56 years the business operated.
Mrs. Hughes said that she identified a problem with chicken coops as a consumer and applied a solution as a businesswoman.
“I didn’t set out to do this, but it almost slapped me in the face,” she said. “There was nothing like it on the market. I needed a coop that functions well, I can walk inside of it, it takes the chickens’ health into consideration and it enhances my property.”
Mrs. Hughes said that she wanted to take her daughter outside to learn about where food comes from and spend less time on devices with screens. Keeping chickens was part of her plan to give Olive a wholesome lifestyle, she said. After building a prototype chicken coop, Mrs. Hughes took it to home shows to see if other people were interested.
“It was confirmed instantly that I was not alone,” she said. Mrs. Hughes developed her website in March of 2019 and the business took flight in June of the same year.
Customers can shop for luxury chicken coops offered on the website, cutestcoops.com, or design a custom coop. There are various styles of coops, including a charming, classic, cube, country, city, chapel, chateau and chalet coop, along with a vast array of colors and sizes. Cost of the coops featured on the website range from $1,000 to $15,000.
“It’s about answering consumers’ needs. It’s been in my nature and nurture,” Mrs. Hughes said of her background with the family business. “I was a retailer but I explained to the manufacturers that they were missing the boat by not offering a product in this color or that variation. Even as a kid, I recognized needs in the market and I told my parents. I’m a very product-consumer-oriented person.”
Every coop is handcrafted and most are built in Amish country. She said that there is a collaborative effort to consider her design ideas and the integrity of the final product, noting the importance of quality. Mrs. Hughes said that Cutest Coops is not always the first choice business when someone is looking for a coop. The customers come to Cutest Coops after their first couple coops fall apart.
“I don’t like the idea of buying something three times,” she said. “Buy it once and buy it right.”
Mrs. Hughes said that chickens live for a long time and she prefers a coop that someone can stand in to avoid injuring their back. Her coops also account for the health of the chickens, she said, adding that they have good ventilation and are predator-safe. Different clients across the country have told her about concerns with different animals, such as foxes in the midwest, snakes in the south and bears in Colorado.
Despite the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cutest Coops grew tenfold from 2019 to 2020 and is expected to grow threefold from 2020 to 2021. When the pandemic hit, Mrs. Hughes’ now 8-year-old daughter, Olive, was learning virtually at home. Mrs. Hughes helped her with school until 4 p.m. every day, then worked on her business. Since people were encouraged to stay at home during the pandemic, many people began keeping chickens. For some people, keeping chickens became a necessity, Mrs. Hughes said, because they could not find eggs at the grocery stores.
“We have trends that exist outside of COVID and they were accelerated by COVID,” she explained. “There are people who live on rural farms. Moms are focused on organic food and they have gardens. They go hand in hand with having chickens.”
Mrs. Hughes is thrilled to show her daughter how a successful business operates. She shows Olive the details of designing a coop and she is involved in the photo shoots for the Cutest Coops website. When her mother sells a coop, Olive places a pushpin on a map of the U.S. Cutest Coops has customers in 49 states.
“What is cool and motivates me the most is that my daughter gets to witness a business being built from zero to something special,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Because she’s a girl, it’s important to lead by example.”
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