San Diego Shade was started by John and Ila Rhea Alexander. John, born in Kentucky in 1888, married Ila and moved to San Diego in 1912. Ila took a job at Bell Telephone Company while John went to work in the window shade department of Holzwasser’s on Fifth and Broadway, which later became the Walker Scott Department Store.
In 1914, the year the Panama-California Exposition debuted at Balboa Park, John purchased the entire stock of window shade materials and related equipment from Holzwasser’s for the sum of $82 and opened San Diego’s first exclusive window covering company, San Diego Window Shade Company. Ila quit Bell Telephone and joined John at the new store. 
The first location was in the downtown San Diego building at 616 B Street, in what was known then as the old B Street School Building. In the beginning, the Alexander’s operated the business alone, doing all of the measurements, manufacturing and shade installations themselves.
In the 1920’s, the B Street School building was demolished and the business was moved to 7th Street, across from the San Diego Sun Newspaper (which operated until 1939). As San Diego grew, so did San Diego Window Shade Company. By the 1920’s, with a good number of employees on the payroll, the business had become the primary installer of linoleum floor covering in the San Diego region, so the company became San Diego Shade & Linoleum, Inc. – our official name today.
When the Alexanders retired in the late 1950’s they passed the business to their daughter Rhea and her husband William Watts. The business subsequently moved to 30th Street in North Park and then to Mission Gorge Road, about a block up the road from its present location at 7449 Mission Gorge Road.
In the 1980’s, Bob Anderson, a licensed CPA, purchased the business from the Alexander family and, with his wife Joyce, successfully ran San Diego Shade & Linoleum for the last 24 years. During the 1990’s, in response to changes in the flooring market, San Diego Shade and Linoleum gave up flooring and refocused on its roots – window coverings. Since then, we’ve referred to ourselves as San Diego Shade.
This year, after successful stints at SAIC and Qualcomm here in San Diego, Bill Fleck, along with his wife Tina, took over the company in 2011 in order to give the Andersons more time to relax. Like the previous families before them, the Flecks look forward to keeping San Diego Shade alive and well in the 21st century.
Now approaching its 98th birthday, San Diego Shade is still going strong, a testamentn to our legacy of providing great value, treating people well and staying true to our word.