Proudly Local Business: Five Star Home Solutions in Camrose

There’s a special kind of joy that comes after transforming a space into something truly your own. It’s the feeling of walking into your freshly renovated home and seeing sunlight dance across brand-new hardwood floors or the pride of opening the door to a modern, welcoming office that makes every workday just a little brighter.

Whether it’s a cozy family room or a sleek commercial space, a well-designed renovation or new home breathes new life into the places where we live, work and connect.

For families and businesses in Camrose, that feeling is what Five Star Home Solutions has delivered with every project for over a decade.

“Building is kind of like a marriage. Everyone has to learn to love each other before the project begins and then everyone gets to have a fun time going through the process together.”

Owners Shawn and Michelle’s entrepreneurial journey began 16 years ago when they moved from Medicine Hat to Camrose with their son and two daughters. Armed with Shawn’s background as a journeyman carpenter and experience running a previous carpentry shop, they decided to open a business in Camrose that would bring their unique touch to residential and commercial projects alike.

Five Star offers a wide range of services, from custom home builds to intricate renovations and commercial developments. “We’re very unique in that we don’t just do new construction,” says Shawn. “In the industry, people generally stick to one discipline, but we kind of do it all.”

Doing it all is made easier with the help of 10 skilled and trusted staff members, some of whom have been with Five Star since day one. “We’ve always kept a fairly big in-house staff, anywhere from 10 to 30 employees at a time, and keep it running as a mom-and-pop business,” says Shawn. “With that, we have more control over the quality of our work and build stronger one-on-one connections with our customers.”

Those strong relationships are the foundation for success in Shawn’s line of work. “Building is kind of like a marriage,” says Shawn. “Everyone has to learn to love each other before the project begins and then everyone gets to have a fun time going through the process together.”

For Shawn, the most fun comes from breathing new life into old spaces. “We enjoy the new designs and drafting for new builds,” he says. “But I also still love taking 1920s homes and retrofitting them and making them into something new. It seems we try to reinvent the wheel every time.”

Living and working in Camrose has been a fulfilling experience for Shawn as both a business owner and family man, now with five children in the mix. Over the years, the team at Five Star and the MacKinnon family have been active participants in the Camrose community, supporting various charitable initiatives and lifting other businesses up. “This is a tight-knit community where others can rely on us and we can rely on them, too,” says Shawn. “There are a lot of good builders in the community that we’ll happily recommend if we’re unable to do the job and that’s pretty unique.” 

As for the future of the business, Shawn jokes that his daughters have yet to catch the construction bug. But the strong connections he’s built over the last decade will likely come in handy. “Some of the guys on my team have been with me from day one and will hopefully take over and keep it going strong when the time comes.”

At its core, Five Star Home Solutions is driven by family values and a dedication to quality, creativity and support along the way. “People think a new build is going to be scary,” says Shawn. “But it doesn’t have to be. We’re here to take the complication out of it.”

Spoken like a dad of five who knows how to juggle it all with the right foundation.