He knew they cut corners. But the clients only saw the number on the quote. And the number on their quote was always lower. Lost three contracts in four months. He wasn't in crisis yet, but he could see crisis from where he was standing.
The Bennett property was on the edge of Buckhead. Not quite the gleaming new money section, but the older part where the houses had been standing for 70 or 80 years and had the bones to prove it. Richard Bennett's family had owned this particular property for four decades. Marcus had gotten the job through a referral, a colleague of Richards, who'd hired Carter Restoration to work on a century old craftsman bungalow, and had been, by his own words, genuinely stunned by the results. Richard had called Marcus himself directly, which wasn't typical for a man of his profile.
Most people, like Richard Bennett, had assistants who handled the contractors. The job itself was substantial. The back wing of the house had suffered water damage that had been improperly patched over years, and Marcus was there to strip it down, find everything that had been hidden, and restore it properly. It was the kind of job Marcus lived for. Not because it was glamorous, it wasn't, but because it demanded honesty.
You couldn't fake this kind of restoration. Either you found every damaged piece and dealt with it, or you didn't. And if you didn't, it showed up eventually. Sometimes years later and the whole thing came apart. Anyway, he believed that about most things in life, not just buildings.
Richard Bennett was in his late 60s with silver hair and the kind of stillness that came from a lifetime of making decisions and living with them. He appeared that first morning not as a client hovering nervously over his property, but as a man who simply wanted to see how another man worked. He brought coffee. That was the first thing that surprised Marcus. Black?
Richard asked, holding out the mug. Yeah, thank you. Marcus accepted it. Slightly unsure how to calibrate. He wasn't used to clients bringing him coffee.
Equipment? Yes. Information? Obviously. Coffee?
No. Richard stood back and watched him work for a while without speaking, which was also unusual. Most wealthy clients either hovered anxiously or ignored you entirely. Richard Bennett just watched with the focused, quiet attention of someone who found the process genuinely interesting. "You found the second layer already," Richard finally said.
Marcus looked up. "You knew there was a second layer?" "I suspected." The previous contractor who fixed it 15 years ago. He moved fast. Moved cheap. I suspected he covered something rather than fixed it.
He did. Marcus confirmed. There's original damage underneath that patch that was never addressed. It's been sitting in there for 15 years. Getting worse, he paused.
I'll need to go further back than we originally discussed. Richard nodded. What's your honest assessment? The framing in this section is compromised. Not critically.