How Gatewood Fence & Gate Was Born
Hal Gatewood started this company in 2001 because of a gate that nearly killed a family’s dog, and a repair bill that nearly killed their savings. He was working for a fencing outfit back then, and a call came in from a homeowner in Los Angeles whose automatic gate had malfunctioned. The safety sensors had failed, the gate had closed on their Labrador, and the dog was lucky to survive. When Hal arrived, he found the sensors had been bypassed entirely by a previous technician who didn’t want to deal with the wiring. The homeowner handed him an invoice from two months earlier, almost four figures, for a repair that had made the gate more dangerous than it was before. That was the moment Hal decided he was done working that way. He would build gates that close the way they’re supposed to, fix what could be fixed instead of replacing it, and never leave a job site with a safety feature disabled. He started small, a single shop and a truck with his own name on the door. Today, Gatewood Fence & Gate has grown into a network of locations, but the core of the business has not changed in all the years since. The name is on the work, and Hal still treats every job like the neighbor who gets the bill is someone he’ll see again at the hardware store on Saturday.
Hal Gatewood’s Personal Connection to the Gate Repair Trade
Hal Gatewood did not grow up dreaming about gate hardware. He grew up around people who fixed things because replacing them was not an option. The first gate he ever repaired was his own, a sagging driveway gate that scraped against the concrete every time the wind pushed it. He remembers lying on his back in the driveway, looking up at the hinge post, and realizing the gate had not failed in the middle. It had failed at the post. He took the panel off, reset the post, and hung the gate again with new hardware. The next morning it opened smooth and quiet for the first time in years. That feeling, the specific satisfaction of making something work correctly with your own hands, is what got him into this trade and what has kept him in it for over two decades.
The work suits him. There is a logic to a gate, a physical honesty about why something sags or binds or refuses to open. When a gate sags, it sags in the hinge post, not in the middle. When a panel fails, fixing the panel without addressing the post means fixing it twice. Hal has spent his career learning those truths on job sites, in welding bays, and in the middle of driveways with the sun going down. He welds on site instead of hauling a gate back to the shop for a fortnight. He repairs what other companies want to replace. And he gets genuinely annoyed when he finds safety sensors somebody bypassed because it was easier than doing the job right. This is not a credential to him. It is simply the way the work should be done.
The sensory details stay with him. The smell of cutting oil in a hot garage. The weight of a gate panel when you lift it off its hinges. The sound a properly tensioned gate makes when it closes, a soft thunk instead of a slam. Those details matter because they tell you whether a job was done right or just finished. Hal would rather be under a gate with a level and a wrench than behind a desk. If he were not doing this, he would probably be fixing something else, a boat motor, a tractor, a fence line. The trade chose him as much as he chose it.
Meet Hal Gatewood - The Person Behind Every Job
Hal Gatewood is the owner and founder of Gatewood Fence & Gate. He has spent more than two decades in the fencing and gate trade, starting with a single shop and building a network of locations across the state. His background is hands-on: welding, fabrication, site work, and the kind of troubleshooting you can only learn by standing in front of a gate that will not open and figuring out why. He holds the licenses and credentials required for the work, and every pro working under the Gatewood name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. But what sets Hal apart from a franchise technician is simpler than a license. He publishes his name, his address, and his license number, and he answers his own phone. When a job goes out under his name, he is accountable for it in a way no corporate badge can replicate. Hal is the kind of person who would rather keep a customer for twenty years than win one big ticket. That is not a slogan. That is how he has run this company since the day it opened in 2001.
Our Promise to Homeowners
Every Gatewood Fence & Gate location operates on the same code of values, and we call it L.O.C.A.L. because each letter means something specific. Local roots: an address in this county, not a call center three states away. On time: the window we give you is the window, and we call if it slips. Community first: we hire here, we buy here. Accountable: the owner answers the phone and puts his name on the work. Loyal: we would rather keep you for twenty years than win one big ticket. These are not words on a website. They are the rules every location operates under, and they are the reason Hal puts a ninety day warranty in writing on every fences and gates job. One call brings him back. Fix the panel without the post and you will fix it twice. We would rather fix it once, correctly, and have you remember us when your neighbor’s gate starts sagging.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed: every pro working under the Gatewood Fence & Gate name is required to hold the license their state requires for gate and fencing work.
- Insured and bonded: every location carries the coverage required to protect your home and property while work is underway.
- Local experience: we have been working in California communities since 2001, and we know the climate, the code requirements, and the gate failures that happen here.
- A reputation built on repeat customers: our strongest credential is the homeowner who calls us back for the next project and refers us to the people on their street.
Why does this matter when you are hiring someone to work on your gate? Because a gate is a heavy, moving object that can cause real harm if it is not installed and repaired correctly. A license means the person touching your gate has met the training and experience standards the state requires. Insurance means you are protected if something goes wrong. And local experience means we have seen your specific gate problem before, on a house like yours, in a climate like yours. That is worth more than any badge.
Rooted in the Communities We Serve
Gatewood Fence & Gate was founded in Los Angeles, and it has grown into a network of locations serving communities across California, from Long Beach and Riverside to Sacramento and Fresno, from Woodland Hills and Santa Clarita to Santa Ana, Palmdale, and the Bay Area. We are not a single crew in a single town. We are a family of local locations, each one staffed by people who live and work in the area they serve. The name Gatewood is a real American surname that happens to contain the trade, which nobody planned and everybody remembers. That name is on every shop, every truck, and every job we finish, and it means the same thing in every zip code where it appears: the owner answers the phone, the work is done right, and the person who did it will run into you again on a Saturday.
Written by Hal Gatewood, Owner & Founder at Gatewood Fence & Gate, serving California communities since 2001.