The Florida Keys House Railing Story

                                       The Florida Keys House Railing Story

                                                         2005

This story should be called the 4000 easy steps in doing a renovation project in the Florida Keys.

                                       The story was Re-written 05/03/2016.

This is  a true story about what we went through to get an aluminum railing installed in 2005.   

                                                          Howard Yasgar

In September of 2001, my wife and I purchased a water front property located in Venetian Shores.

Venetian Shores is a development located on the island of Islamorada in the Florida Keys.

When we bought the property, we knew that every square inch of it needed to be renovated.

That included everything, on the property, even the seawall, and landscaping were in a terribly neglected condition.

You could say that the entire house and property was a “Fixer Upper”.

We had bought the property because its location was absolutely perfect, it was a large corner property that was 100 feet long by 100 feet wide, one of the largest in Venetian Shores.

Back in 1967, the original owner had, illegally added fill to the two sides of the property making the lot larger.  

The house overlooked “Snake Creek”, which is the main waterway that boats need to use when traveling from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean or visa versa.

So not only could we watch all the boats going by, but we could also see the Snake Creek bridge on U.S. 1, opening and closing.

The house on the property was built in the “Art  Deco” style, but by 2001, we thought that a Art Deco style no longer suited the Florida Keys, we felt that a Mediterranean style house would be far more appropriate.  

When we bought the property we had assumed that there was going to be no shortage of  contractors, and craftsmen available in the Keys to assist us in the renovation.

We also thought the trade people in the Keys would be anxious to want to work with us on such a  large renovation project.

That turned out to be an erroneous assumption on our part regarding the Keys.

The first highly recommended architect we hired, had to be fired after just three months, as he had done absolutely nothing except take a hefty deposit from us.

Once we started talking to other people in the Keys, we were warned about the “Keys Disease”, that was the term used when you hired local workers and they failed to show up, or fail to do what they had promised to do.

We had never experienced anything like the Keys Disease before, so when it actually happened to us we were kind of surprised.

Also, once we found a contractor to work with us, we found that overcharging for materials was a common practice in the Keys.

All the Keys contractors  knew that the majority of the homeowners in the Keys, didn’t live there full time, so they took advantage of the situation by jacking up the prices as high as they could.

After all, what was an out of state  homeowner going to do, except pay.

In our case, we found our contractor was working in collusion with all the local suppliers.

How their scheme worked was fairly simple, the hardware supplier overcharged the customers, then gave back money to the contractor.

Some vendors rewarded the larger crooked contractors with free year end vacations in the Bahamas or Mexico, it’s quite a racket they have going.   

It wasn’t long before we realized that getting anything done in the Florida Keys, was in many ways worse than doing a project in a foreign country.

Not only that, but our living in Miami, really compounded all our problems, as we were noted to be  on the property every day to watch and see that the work was being done properly.

We thought we could try solving the problem by bringing qualified workers from Miami, to the Keys, but we soon determined that the travel time to have them come to the Keys from Miami added too much to the overall costs.

Also we eventually found out that very few, if any of the Miami contractors had Workman’s Compensation Insurance, which is required to work in the Keys.

So we knew that if a building inspector in the Keys ever caught a contractor working without workman’s, Compensation Insurance they would have all the work that was being done torn out, then we, as the homeowner could be fined, this made using an uninsured contractor from Miami or anywhere else a very dangerous proposition.  

So because of that, and several more complications we ran into, it made every project we did on the property in Venetian Shores, a problem worthy of writing a book about.

The “Aluminum house railing story”, that I am going to relate to you is just one of several stories regarding the renovation, and this is how the story started.

When all the exterior concrete construction and tile work was done, and a new third floor had been  added to the house, it was time for us to think about doing the aluminum railings that were to go around the house.

The original house built in 1967, had railings made from 1-1/4 inch iron pipe that was welded and painted silver. However now, Iron pipe railings no longer met current Keys code requirements, so it all had to be removed.

Once that was done, my wife and I started driving up and down all the streets in Venetian Shores, we were looking at the different kinds of aluminum railings.

We were not only looking for a Mediterranean style, but one that we liked.

We felt that if we found a railing we liked, we could always find out who did the work and call them.

After a couple of weekends of looking, we didn’t find even one railing we wanted, but we did get a lot of  good ideas.

We found that the Mediterranean style we liked was called  birds breast, and it came in many different shapes.

However, what we didn’t like was seeing that the railing installers used metal screws and hardware to fasten their railings down.

You would think the Keys railing installers would be smarter, but they weren’t, they all used screws that eventually rusted  in the salt air, and the rusty hardware eventually left ugly brown stains on the houses.

Now, regarding our contractor, this is the way he worked, whatever we paid to a sub- contractor, he would add an 18% percent commission on for himself, so the higher the price we paid anyone, the better it was for him.

We found that he would always try to push us to do business with his sub contractors.

They were all companies that would also add into the price a hefty commission for the contractor besides his 18%.

The contractor took us to several Keys railing companies, and he said we could pick out any style railings we wanted out of a catalog.

What we found was that all his railing stores only carried ready made railings.

They simply ordered  them and bolted the sections together, using stainless hardware that rusted. None of them were actually making the railings.

For these totally uninspired railings they wanted an outrageous $80,000.00, which probably included a $20,000.00 or more commission for our contractor.

Not only that but the end results would be that our house would just look like half the other houses in the Keys.

We knew that we wanted a Mediterranean bird breast design that didn’t look like everyone else’s.

We soon found that all the Keys railing companies would automatically jack up the prices as soon as they knew that we were with a contractor.

After we turned all of them down, our disappointed contractor then introduced us to another one of his buddies, he was a fellow that actually did fabricate and weld railings, but when I saw examples of his welding, I felt that the quality was so poor, I would have been crazy to even consider using him.

Eventually we came to feel that we would never be able to find what we wanted in the Keys, so we started looking at railing fabricators in Miami.

We asked around, but we didn’t find anyone in Miami that was interested to do the job.

But, we did find a actual sample of the birds breast railing that we wanted.

Once we had it, we were finally able to draw on paper the exact style of railing just as we had envisioned it.

We were wearing ourselves out talking to so many different people about the railing.

Before we knew it, several months had passed with nothing happening.

I again measured the house, and I then determined for certain that we needed over five hundred linear feet of aluminum railing, and that was just for the exterior walkway, then we also needed aluminum railings for two third floor balconies.

Besides from the exterior aluminum railings, we also needed iron railing for the inside of the house.

We needed quite a few feet of iron railing for the stairs going from the first floor to the second floor, and then more iron railing for the curved staircase going from the second floor foyer up to the third floor and across the balcony.

Our intention was to do the interior iron railings the same as we had done on our previous house in Plantation Key Colony.

We had used iron railings that were painted white, then we mounted two foot tall colorfully painted coconut palms on it every few feet apart.

We knew that our colorful coconut palm design on the railings would look beautiful, because when we had sold our  house the buyers loved the railing.

When we sold that house the new owners wanted to be assured the railing with the painted coconut palms stayed there, so we promised we wouldn’t remove it.

As time passed, every free moment I had, was spent calling or visiting railing fabricators in Miami, but none were anxious to do our railing project.

One day, one of our former  employees named Hector, stopped by to say hello.

Hector, was a Cuban refugee had worked for us for several years, and he had learned how to be an excellent machinist, and welder.

Over the several years that Hector had worked for us, he had quite a few altercations with fellow employees, and he  had developed a reputation of being a hot head.

While we all liked Hector, when he said he was leaving us to work elsewhere, no one tried to stop him.

So, when I saw Hector’s truck, in our parking lot, I knew he was there visiting some of his old friends at our company.

I also noticed that Hector was driving a new pickup truck, so I assumed he was doing OK at whatever he was doing, so I went into our shop to say hello to him.

I asked Hector what he was doing for a living, since he left us, and he said, “I’m making and installing railings.”

I couldn’t believe it, so I said, Hector, do I have a project for you.

I proceeded to tell Hector all about the railing project we had at our house in the Keys.

Hector said, he would come down to the house and look the project over, so I invited him to come down to see us the following weekend.

Hector spoke very little English, but he came down with his lovely wife who was bilingual and she spoke fluent English.

We explained to Hector, about how we wanted our Mediterranean design railing done. It was  to be welded, and painted in white powder coating.

We said also, that all the railing supports were to be imbedded into the concrete with no metal hardware used anywhere.

Hector said he understood perfectly, and he proceeded to measure inside and the outside of the house.

The following week Hector came to our office in Miami with all his prices.

He said he needed $13,000.00 to buy materials, he would need another $13,000.00 for installation and then another $13,000.00 for his profit.

I asked Hector when he could start the project, and I told him that I would write him a $13,000.00 check to buy all the aluminum that very day.

About thirty days passed, and it was a sunny Saturday morning when Hector arrived with the first group of  five, six foot sections new aluminum railing, exactly as we had designed it.

Hector also brought an assistant with him named Miguel.

I also saw that they also had brought a brand new boring machine to drill holes in the concrete to embed the railing supports, just like we had asked him to do.

Hector and Miguel had arrived around ten thirty in the morning and it took around three hours for them to drill several holes in the concrete and install the five pieces of railing.

Around two in the afternoon they opened up their cooler and broke out the Heinekens.

After a few beers, they then assembled their fishing rods and went fishing off of the seawall on  the corner of our property.

Sometimes when my wife and I were sleeping, we would wake up as Hector and Miguel were leaving our property, it was usually around two in the morning

Hector and Miguel followed this same routine every weekend until almost half the railing was done.

We knew that doing the railing project was taking them a long time, but we were happy to see it was actually getting done.

One Saturday morning, Hector’s wife called.

She said, “Hector had been in a minor car accident on the Florida turnpike, she said, it was really nothing, and Hector would be back to work the following week.

We patiently waited, but two weeks passed without Hector showing up.

After three weeks passed, I noticed Hectors truck was sitting in front of our building again.

It appeared that Hector had stopped by to say hello to some of his old friends.

I went outside and Hector was sitting behind the wheel of his truck.

I asked Hector what the heck had happened, and why he hadn’t shown up to finish the railing project.

Hector said, he had been in a minor accident, and all of it would all be resolved soon, then he waved a yellow piece of paper in front of me.

I couldn’t read the paper, but I saw it was a bail bond contract. It appears that Hector had just that day been bonded out of jail.

When Hector left, I asked his friends what really had happened?

They said that Hector had been in some kind of minor accident on the turnpike and he had attacked the other driver with a hammer.

After that day, we never ever saw Hector again, but we suspected they had put him in jail for a long time.   

By now, more than a year had passed, and our railing was just half finished and we had no one to turn to complete the job.

We kept trying to call Hector’s home, until it eventually was disconnected.

Not only did we not know where Hector was, but we had no idea where the rest of our $13,000.00 of aluminum was.

That’s when I suggested that we try looking for his assistant Miguel.

Our shop manager, took on the responsibility of calling all the Miami railing companies, and luckily after five calls he found the company where Hectors assistant Miguel was working.

Miguel promised he would come to our office with his new boss the very next day.

When they came, he introduced his new boss.

The fellow was a very tall nasty acting Cuban, who was also named Miguel, to me he looked like a dangerous guy.

This new Miguel guy seemed to know all about our project.

He said he knew where all our aluminum was, and he wanted to ransom it to us.

He also wanted triple the price to finish the railing job that Hector had started.

He made me so mad, I told them to leave our office.

The following day, Miguel, Hectors original assistant called me, he said the tall Lanky nasty Miguel wasn’t really the company owner.

He said the real owner of the railing company was a Nicaraguan fellow who was also in the trucking business, and they wanted another meeting with us again.

At the next meeting both of the Miguel’s agreed to finish our railing, and the price was to remain the same as Hector had quoted, so we all shook hands, and the project was on again.

About another two weeks passed and on a Saturday morning, their truck showed up.

Not only did the guys have a load of our railing, but they had brought down several young fellows as helpers.

That day the installation work went quickly.

Then, just like before, at about two in the afternoon the Heineken’s came out and everyone sat on our seawall fishing.

This same exact ritual with the beer and the fishing went on for another two months.

We would always hear their truck leaving, usually around two in the morning.

As the weeks passed, Katherine was becoming more and more irritated with them, she wanted me to intercede and say something to them about all the beer drinking and the fishing, but I didn’t do it, I just wanted the railing job to be finished.

Then, one Saturday everything changed, Miguel and Miguel showed up with their entire families.

It now appeared that every weekend, the working on our railing project was going to be like a big family picnic.

They came prepared with plenty of beer and food and they set up portable construction lights on the seawall, so now they had light to see at night while they were fishing.

Katherine was now complaining to me every week about their drinking.

Finally, I agreed with her, I also had enough of it, and I called up their boss.

Their boss came down to the Keys with his wife, and when he saw what was going on, he stopped the fooling around and they did complete the job.

After more than two years of torture, the railing in the Keys was finally completed.

Just before they left, I asked the nasty Miguel to give us a price on putting up a circular aluminum stairway to the roof.

Miguel spent the better part of the day measuring  everything, he said he would call me in a day or so.

I’m still waiting.