A nice custom option that's well within your budget is a custom longbow "blank" from 7 Lakes Archery (Mike Ballenger), a Tradgang sponsor. Mike's price for a basic custom longbow blank (actionboo or hard rock maple limb laminations, black glass, black or brown actionwood riser) is $300 shipped ($275 plus $25 shipping). I recently had Mike build me a reverse-handle Hill-style ASL blank that I finished-- it turned out great and is a great shooter. Mike was great to work with and built the blank to my exact specs.
I also just bought another 7 Lakes used-- a SF (string-follow) Carolina Night 68" 52#@28" Hill-style longbow that was bought as a blank in 2013 and finished by the original owner. He sold it because it was just a little heavier that he liked to shoot regularly. It's a beautiful bow, with 3 Eastern Red Cedar lams and 1 walnut lam in the limbs, black glass, and walnut riser with a cedar curved accent stripe in the riser.
Mike's build quality on my reverse-handle bow and the cedar/walnut bow is excellent. Both are perfectly tillered for split-finger shooting.
Finishing a 7 Lakes blank is easy-- the info on Mike's website on how to finish his blanks is spot-on, and doesn't underestimate or overestimate the amount of work needed to finish a blank. If anything, I thought it was easier than Mike explains on the site.
For a finish, I used Minwax Wipe-on polyurethane (I used gloss-- it really makes the black glass and black/charcoal actionwood riser pop). It's easy to use, and gives a nice smooth finish. I don't have a spray-gun setup for my little compressor, so my polyurethane options were the wipe-on or spray can. I've used both on various bows, and I get nicer results with the wipe-on.