'It weighs on me': Meet the Georgetown master hatter with a yearlong waitlist

GEORGETOWN, Texas (KXAN) -- Peek in the window and you'll realize Nate Funmaker's hat store is Georgetown square's most elusive business.

If you don't check the hours or call beforehand, window shopping is as close as you'll come to it.

For years, the business was open to the public just five hours a week on Saturdays before expanding last month to include a few hours on weekdays, too.

Even if the door is unlocked when you arrive, what you really want to buy isn't readily for sale in the store.

If you want what he calls a "good hat," you'll be waiting about a year.

"To me, a good hat is not just the quality of it, which I'm 100 percent about quality, but also making it look like their hat," said Funmaker.

The hats for sale at the front of the store are mass-produced and manufactured by someone else. While these straw and wool hats may satisfy the appetite of a shopper searching for a nice gift or souvenir, they're not a "good hat" by Funmaker's standards.

To get one of those you need to set up an appointment to talk with him one-on-one. Most people don't know what kind of hat would be best for them, but Funmaker can usually find out by asking the right questions.

"It's funny how often people think I'm the artist that came up with that, and I did, but I listened to them," he said.

He'll find out if you fish, ride horses, like to garden, or drive with the top down. How you answer those questions helps determine your hat.

"I love the discovery of that," he said.

If you've made it that far, you've made it further than most who stop by Nathaniel's Custom Hats, but you won't see your hat for a while.

Funmaker, 60, comes from a family of Native American artists, but that's not where his hat-making story starts. Instead, it was some 32 years ago in a Colorado forest.

The then 28-year-old already had nearly a decade of experience cutting timber and planting trees when he was introduced to an "old cowboy hatter" by a fellow lumberjack. The pair started working for the man, but only one stuck with it.

"He decided he didn't like it, and I loved it, so I stayed and kept doing it," he said.

In 2000, Funmaker purchased the hatmaking equipment from the old cowboy and started his own business.

The tools he uses are old, rare and expensive to fix. Last summer, Funmaker spent $30,000 repairing an 80-year-old blocking machine, which uses steam to help soften up the blanks and makes the shaping process possible.

Though the store isn't often open, Funmaker is still there working in the back six days a week. He meticulously and methodically creates the hats, which he calls works of art, alongside his family, who moved here from Colorado in 2015.

In addition to working the front of the store and interacting with customers, Funmaker's wife Kerrie, 54, helps trim the hats by adding some of the finishing touches like bands to the outside and silk liners on the inside.

His son Ethan, 20, works in the back with Funmaker, taking all the customer's measurements on top of the sanding and ironing required for a hat to hold its shape.

Nathaniel's Custom Hats is in good company as there's been a noteworthy surge in demand for goods made by hand.

A report by research company IMARC Group found an annual expected growth rate of 9.4 percent from 2023 to 2032 in the handcraft goods sector.

Last year, it found the North American market was already worth an estimated $331 billion. By 2032, that number is expected to more than double to $744 billion.

Funmaker starts his process with a hat blank made from one of four animal hairs. While a hat made from a rabbit will run you around $750, those made from mink top out at $2,500. Hats made from beaver and a beaver/rabbit blend sit in between the lower and upper price points.

The waitlist to get one of the custom hats has more than 300 orders on it and isn't moving particularly fast.

It takes the family an entire day to get one hat right, meaning you'll be waiting close to a year before you finally get your hat.

"It's funny—I make a hat, it leaves the door, somebody walks in and orders a hat," he said. "So my 300 orders, they vary a little bit. I think the most I've had was 390 orders, and it weighs on me. I tell people a year delivery. Me and my son and my wife do it. We make hats six days a week."

While Funmaker said he wished he had more time for hobbies like golf and bike riding, the hats remain his passion.

He said he doesn't think much about his legacy but still wears a hat he made 29 years ago. What matters to him now is instilling that work ethic into the next generation, and ensuring the "good hat" he makes for his customers will stand the test of time too.

"If I when I'm gone, if my kids are proud of me, that's all I care about," he said. "Nothing else."