He Would Have Told Everybody About It

Before Luke Holle had a crew, before builders knew and trusted his name, before leading one of Lincoln’s largest public art projects, there was a moment in a truck.

Growing up, Luke knew he wanted to carve his own path, and one day, he decided to take the jump. He was just one man with a truck, who knew how to get things done with his hands. He would get a few calls here and there; he did what he could.

Then there was a moment. He had just finished about 200 square feet of vinyl flooring. The final check was in his hand, roughly $2,000, and that was everything he had. No next job. Nothing on the schedule. Rent coming due. Panic settled in. Doubts crept in.

But he knew he had to keep going. He couldn’t stop now. There was more waiting for him. That night, he sat there on the street and started texting and calling anyone who had ever so much as expressed that they might need work done. Anything.

“Thankfully, that was the last very panicky, scary moment that I can remember,” he said.

In the early years of starting a business, with all the uncertainty attached, there was one call Luke made more than any other. It wasn’t to someone that needed work done. It was someone he could lean on.

It was to his dad.

Thirty years of watching how it’s done

Luke’s father ran his own company for 30 years, installing large-scale furniture in college housing. Entire dorm buildings, entirely furnished by his crews.

Luke grew up watching what it takes to be the person whose name is on the work, what it takes to manage a team, and what it takes to grow a successful business. When he finally went out to start his own business, he realized that there was a lot he didn’t know, but he knew who to ask.

“When I went out on my own, I started calling my dad on an almost daily basis,” Luke said. “Just talking about business, talking about work, asking him questions.”

The work he couldn’t bring himself to do

Luke never planned to specifically do tile. He went to school to be a machinist and learned quickly that he wasn’t built for process or routine. He filed his LLC while still splitting his weeks between side jobs and learning to set tile under a veteran installer. When he went full-time, he answered whatever call he was competent enough to answer. Vinyl. Paint. Handyman jobs.

Then two things became clear. He had a real gift for tile. And there was a certain kind of work he couldn’t stomach.

“I couldn’t really morally justify doing crappy labor as fast as possible,” he said. “That’s another way to make a lot of money. And I don’t knock guys that do it. My personality just can’t handle it.”

So he went where the care he was already putting in got paid for. High-end custom homes. Customers who notice details. Builders who would rather do it right once. Artisans. That’s been his specialty since.

What they don’t tell you about growing a business

Last year, 2025, was the most stressful year Superboy Construction has ever faced. Not the worst financially, but the most stressful. Interest rates finally caught up to the high-end market, and builders started fewer homes.

When Luke was on his own, a slow month meant his own rent. His own bills. Now he keeps a crew of five to seven skilled tradesmen busy. About half of them have kids.

“The biggest stressor for me is making sure my guys have their hours.”

The psychological stress from holding the responsibility of someone else’s paycheck is not talked enough about. In that year, he learned to not say no to work. He had to take jobs he wouldn’t have previously.

He stuck with it, continued to do good work, and pushed through. There were times where it wasn’t pretty and many things that didn’t go according to plan. But within a year, the hardest season of his career turned into the best one his business has ever had.

“Being a business owner is like a martial art,” he said. “It teaches you about more than business every day.”

763,000 tiles

The Pershing Auditorium mural is one of the largest public art projects in Nebraska’s history, a mosaic of 763,000 small ceramic tiles that covered the front of the old auditorium for decades. When the building came down, years of fundraising and painstaking restoration made it possible to rebuild the mural at Wyuka Park and Cemetery.

Luke and the Superboy team took on the final tile work, moving across ten wall sections, about one per week, engineering their own methods as they went, because nobody alive had done exactly this.

In July 2026, Luke laid the final square.

Along the way, a video from the warehouse went viral. Twelve million views. Thousands of people now follow the work of a tile setter from Lincoln, Nebraska.

But when Luke talks about what the mural actually meant, he doesn’t mention any of those numbers.

“I’ve had hundreds of short, very grateful moments. Things are vibing with the crew, and I’m just like, okay, I’m happy. I have a life I love,” he said. “Those moments are awesome, but they’re usually brief. The mural has been this step back. I’ve accomplished something. If I die today, I’m good.”

He searched for the right comparison. “It’s like the difference between processed sugar and a steak.”

His father passed away two years ago, before the mural began. The man Luke called almost every day never got to see his son’s crew rebuild a piece of Lincoln’s history in front of the whole city.

Luke thought about him through the entire project.

“He would have thought it was the coolest,” Luke said. “He would have told everybody about it. He would have been so proud.”

The mural changed something else, too. It showed Luke a bigger map. He’s now setting his sights on artisan tile work, murals and mosaics, the kind of one-of-a-kind projects that could take his crew far beyond Lincoln. If a city on the other side of the country (New York or California) needs a mosaic rebuilt or a mural set in stone, he wants to be the name that comes up.

He’s done an incredible job. There’s a wall in Lincoln to prove it.

The last question

I asked, “If both of us passed away today, what’s the one thing you’d leave behind for the next generation of service providers?”

He sat with it for a moment.

“Honestly, the first thought that comes to mind is: it’s not easy, but it’s worth it,” he said. “The trade-off is a lot of stress and fear and risk. But the lifestyle that comes with it, if you’re like me and butt heads with anybody who’s in charge of you, it’s totally worth it.”

Then he kept going.

“No matter how successful you are, if you’re manifesting your own life, that’s something to be proud of. I respect people who are grinding out handyman services for 50 grand a year just as much as people who have started giant corporations. You have chosen your own path, and that’s admirable.”

Questions people ask

Who is Luke Holle?

Luke Holle is the owner of Superboy Construction, a Lincoln, Nebraska company that specializes in high-end tile installation for custom homes and builders.

What kind of work does Superboy Construction do?

Superboy Construction installs ceramic, porcelain, and natural stone tile in Lincoln. The team is expanding into artisan tile, mural, and mosaic projects.

What was Superboy Construction’s role in the Pershing mural project?

Luke Holle and the Superboy Construction team handled the final tile installation as the 763,000-piece Pershing mural was rebuilt at Wyuka Park and Cemetery, with Luke laying the final square in July 2026.

What advice does Luke Holle have for new business owners?

“It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.” Luke believes anyone who chooses self-employment, at any scale, has chosen their own path, and that’s worth respecting.

TopicService Providers