Realizing my close knit, extended family needed a larger space to gather, we remodeled our basement. My older brother Fritz had broken his neck in a diving accident and I knew that I needed to figure out a way to easily get him up and down the stairs.

Since my wife wisely would not let me cut a hole for an elevator in the living room floor, I realized that the basement stairwell seemed like it could work instead. Finding the staircase held in place by just a few nails, I cut through those nails and bolted on some gate hinges at the bottom to allow the stairs to easily pivot out of the way. Using part of an old personnel lift found in a salvage yard and various hydraulic and electric components from eBay, I then built a telescoping platform lift that could fit underneath the staircase.

At our first family gathering, a flip of the switch pivoted the stairs out of the way and the first Stairwell Elevator arose from my basement. We continue to use that original elevator today for my brother, but also for storage items, furniture, and even elderly parents, and was subsequently granted US Utility Patent number 7096998.

Now, after a lot of hard work and safety engineering, we are now ready to share this invention with the world and to help everyone experience the freedom, utility and affordability that only the Stairwell Elevator can provide.