A Boot Collector Feature
Mark Candela traded an accounting career for a bootmaker's bench, learning from Dave Wheeler, Lee Miller, and Duck Menzie along the way.
Mark Candela came to bootmaking from an unlikely direction: an accounting degree and a software company he'd founded himself, walked away from in his early forties after a lifelong pull toward Western culture that traced back to childhood westerns and heroes like Hopalong Cassidy. He runs his shop from a restored turn-of-the-century farmhouse on a ranch near Columbus, Texas, along the Colorado River between Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. His bootmaking education came from several of the state's respected names: Dave Wheeler in Houston, who turned him down at first before becoming a steady mentor; Lee Miller of Texas Traditions in Austin, who taught him last-building around 2007–2008; and Duck Menzie in Temple, who passed along the technique behind Charlie Dunn's signature pinched rose.
Boots built almost exclusively from exotic leathers — roughly 80% full ostrich skin, 20% alligator, plus kangaroo — with intricate tooling and inlay work. Candela runs a strict, no-bumping queue with a current wait of two to two and a half years, and personally delivers finished boots to customers with his wife. Notable commissions include boots for Texas A&M's Reveille and custom designs for the Rose Bowl and Citrus Bowl.
A career-change bootmaker, trained by three of Texas's best.
Pairs from smaller, custom, or long-closed makers rarely come up for sale, so this search may not find anything. It’s worth checking back now and then.