Custom

Dentaurum Inc. booth (above) displays a variety of orthodontic appliances during the Middle Atlantic Society of Orthodontists Convention at the Adam's Mark Hotel. At right are some orthodontic custom designs of Pro-Pal.

  K EITH LEAPHART, 38, of Overbrook Farms, is an osteopath-turned-entrepreneur. He owns Replica, a Center City graphic-design, digital-copying, printing and branding firm, acquired in 2009. Q: You're a trained osteopath. Why did you leave medicine? A: I'm a physician by training and entrepreneur by birth. The clinical setting was too limiting for me. I was on the staff of Bryn Mawr Rehabilitation Hospital in Malvern for about six years. I gave up my hospital privileges there in July 2011.

Brian Lipstein, 28, of Manayunk, is CEO of Henry A. Davidsen Master Tailors & Image Consultants, which he founded in 2006. From a shop on 17th Street near Spruce, the Penn graduate creates a custom-tailored look that fits the image a client wants to project. Clients have included Flyers coach Peter Laviolette, former Eagle Ron Jaworski and radio/TV personality Danny Bonaduce. Q: How did you come up with the idea for the company? A: I started selling high-end custom suits for $2,500.

Most businesspeople have to pay to get their advertising message out. Bernie Moeller has people clamoring to buy his ads from him. He's the proprietor and artist of Bernie's Tattooing, at the dead end of West Avenue in Bristol Township, and frankly he has never had much of a budget for advertising in 14 years in the business. "I just give out a few T-shirts and word-of-mouth. That's it," Bernie says. There's no way Bernie could avoid generating a lot of word-of-mouth, as a matter of fact, because he is a striking sight.

With autumn comes the tradition of apple cider freshly pressed by small operations such as Solebury Orchard, which makes its own cider and custom- presses for other orchards. Working out of a small garage near New Hope, Brian Smith, the owner, and Steve Elliott produce from 500 to 2,000 gallons per press.

The Civic Center management, in its infinite wisdom, has directed the custom-car, van and motorcycle show (as it was known) to eliminate motorcycles from the show. When this piece of information reached me I was immediately disappointed. My disappointment quickly changed to curiosity, so I called World of Wheels, which coordinates the show, and asked why. The answer was, "The Civic Center management does not want bikers at the show. " I do not like to be labeled a biker and discriminated against by some middle-management bureaucrat who does not know the difference between a custom-motorcycle hobbyist and a "biker.

As you walk along a bustling street in a foreign city, a smart suit or fashionable dress in a store window catches your eye. But what if it doesn't look as good or fit as well when you get home? Thus, the foreign custom tailor - insurance, more or less, that you get the clothing you want with the fit you should have. And thanks to the Internet, you can get impeccably tailored clothing long after your trip - or without ever leaving home - for the same price as quality U.S. clothiers charge: $300 to $500 for a man's suit, $100 to $200 for a woman's skirt.

Frankford Avenue is to furniture what the Main Line is to plastic surgery: You want a custom job, there's an outfit that can handle it - from Morry's Dinettes (8109 Frankford Ave.) up near Pennypack Creek, which specializes in reupholstering dinette chairs, to Pappajohn Woodworking (4355 Orchard St.), near the El in Frankford, specializing in custom hardwood millwork, cabinets, and furniture that can run to the many thousands of dollars Summerdale Mills , next to Morry's at 8101 Frankford Ave., sells drapery and upholstery fabric to do-it-yourselfers and also builds custom-scaled sofas and chairs, sized as you like to fit odd spaces.

Since the early 1960s, the gray stone mansion at 2850 Providence Rd. in Upper Providence Township has been home to the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine DeRicci. That's about to change as the Roman Catholic nuns plan to move to their retreat house in Elkins Park. The Upper Providence property has been purchased on a conditional sale by developer Mazzenga & Stackeni Enterprises Inc. of Swarthmore, which plans to build 11 custom luxury homes on the site. "We are always looking for properties to develop, and this one really stood out as an excellent location for upscale homes," said Joseph J. Stackeni.

Holly Craig and Dawn Mitchell both live in West Chester, both have two young children, and last summer, both had the same idea for a business: a stationery and children's boutique in town. Separately, they went to West Chester's business development office to present their proposal - and were shocked to find out about the other's identical plans. "Same lines, same idea," said Mitchell, 27, who has a background in fashion merchandising. "My stomach just turned. " "They told us they had never had this happen before," said Craig, 33. The two agreed to meet the very day they found out about each other.