Rella Fogliano, a housing developer who knows a thing or two about project management, claims that three HVAC contractors botched a $732,850 job at her luxury home in Eastchester.
Fogliano and her MacQuesten Construction Management firm accused Mt. Kisco Mechanical Service Corp., Thuesen Mechanical Corp. and Paraco HVAC of breaches of contract in an April 18 complaint filed in Westchester Supreme Court. She is demanding $530,492 in monetary damages.
A co-generation system that was supposed to cost $116,000 but ballooned to more than $165,000, for instance, “is in an utterly useless state and condition,” the complaint states.
The contractors did not reply to messages asking for their sides of the story.
Fogliano has been running MacQuesten Construction, in Pelham, since 2003. She has designed and built affordable housing projects and commercial properties in the Bronx and Westchester. The company boasts on its website that it delivers high-quality real estate projects “on time and within budget.”
In 2017, Fogliano paid $2.05 million for a house in Lake Isle Estates, Eastchester, that was built in 1955.
In 2019, she agreed to pay Mt. Kisco Mechanical Service Corp., of Bedford Hills, $576,000 for mechanical, HVAC, and co-generation systems. She agreed to pay Thuesen Mechanical Corp., Mount Kisco, $156,850 for plumbing and fire protection work. (At some point, according to the complaint, Thuesen was acquired by or merged with Paraco HVAC.)
The cost of Thuesen’s plumbing and fire protection increased by $37,695 by February 2024. But four months later, the complaint states, the work still was not done, the contractor had used improper components, and a snow melting system didn’t work well.
The cost of Mt. Kisco Mechanical’s HVAC and co-generation work, including a portion subcontracted to Thuesen, increased by $187,233.
The HVAC system still doesn’t work right, the complaint says, yet the contractors “have merely suggested to Fogliano that she keep the door to the improperly ventilated mechanical room of her multi-million dollar home open so that the hot air … could spill into and heat the lower left wing of the house.”
Everyone met at the house for a walk through on June 20, 2024, as required by the contracts to resolve disputes, according to the complaint, but the meeting was unsuccessful.
Fogliano cancelled the plumbing contract in July 2024 and the HVAC and co-generation contract on Feb. 3.
The contractors allegedly declined to take the dispute to a mediation service, the complaint states, thus creating the conditions for the lawsuit.
Fogliano is demanding $530,492: including $100,00 for the HVAC work, $165,059 for plumbing and fire protection, and $265,433 for the co-generation system.
White Plains attorney Harry J. Nicolay Jr. represents Fogliano and MacQuesten.
