The PlayHousing Market

There’s no slump here: Barbara Butler’s company thrives by donating its fanciful houses.

Giving away up to $55,000 a year in merchandise has become a tradition for Barbara Butler Artist-Builder Inc. The 21-year-old high-end play structure company — which boasts celebrity clients like Will Smith and expects to bring in $2.3 million in 2008 — makes charitable donations in lieu of having an advertising budget. “We get a lot of publicity, and we try to raise the most money possible,” says Barbara Butler, 51, who owns the 16-person business with her husband, Jeffrey Beal, 52, and her sister, Suzanne, 58.

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First appeared in Entrepreneur magazine