Home restoration goes Crystal green
Lisa Cordasco said she won”™t forget the response after she inherited her father”™s emergency fire-and-water-damage restoration business in 2008.
“When I initially walked in, everyone said, ”˜What could this woman possibly know about construction and those related services,” Cordasco, who joined the company”™s sales department 20 years ago, said. “I”™m happy to say now I could hold my own.”
Cordasco, president of Port Chester-based New Crystal Restoration, the oldest business of its its type in Westchester County, has led the company for the past seven years in an entirely different direction than her father, Louis, did for his 48 years at the helm. Lisa has implemented all green products, which she said makes New Crystal the first such company in Westchester to adopt an all-eco-friendly selection of products.
The reason, she said, is her son, who is autistic and has adverse reactions to chemicals and odors. She wanted to prevent similar reactions in the homeowners and business owners her company served.
She said it doesn”™t cost her more to use the green products, and they”™ve been well-received by her clients, which include both residential and commercial property owners.
The results show. Now a multi million-dollar business, New Crystal Restoration saw sales jump by more than 47 percent in 2014.
“We feel the service we do is very much needed on the local level,” Cordasco said. “You don”™t need to be the biggest, but you need to be the best.”
- Lisa Cordasco and Austin Cordasco-Walsh
New Crystal”™s office on South Regent Street in Port Chester has a 5,000-square-foot warehouse stocked with stain removers, dehumidifiers and carpet cleaners on the site of a former fire station. The company”™s 12 full-time employees use its three vans to work wherever they are called in the Lower Hudson Valley and Fairfield County, where they can be joined by the other 50 freelancers with whom the company contracts.
Most residential jobs come from word-of-mouth referrals, and can range from appliance malfunctions to roof leaks to structure fires. Commercial jobs can include office spaces, schools and restaurants.
Crystal”™s biggest competition is franchise restoration companies with large advertising budgets, but Cordasco said the company uses its 55 years as a mainstay in the community to its advantage. It employs only local, licensed workers homeowners can feel comfortable having perform work in their house.
There”™s no such thing as a set schedule, she said. Calls can come in at any hour of the day or night and most high-profile clients request a level of confidentiality.
“We think of ourselves as the ER for homes,” Cordasco said.
The company has done work on the homes of model Christie Brinkley, Mets owner Fred Wilpon and news anchor Diane Sawyer as well as those of several prominent investment bankers.
The length of a job, depending on factors like square footage, whether it is a corporate or residential property and intensity of damage, can range anywhere from several hours to several weeks.
The company recently worked on a sewage leak at Mercy College, and is currently restoring a property in Beacon that sustained severe fire damage.
Labor Day weekend saw calls from residents reporting air conditioner malfunctions and pipe leaks as well as several street maintenance jobs. As summer turns to fall, Cordasco expects business to pick up further. The colder the temperatures, the greater the potential for pipes bursting, which usually makes for a busy Crystal winter.
She changed the name from Crystal Restoration to New Crystal Restoration simply as a nod to the green products to which the company switched.
New Crystal became a third-generation family business after Cordasco”™s nephew, Austin Cordasco-Walsh, left a Canadian digital company to join New Crystal as its project manager earlier this year.
“Every place we do, every job, has a good story,” Cordasco-Walsh, 24, said.
Cordasco likes to think her company has seen it all and done it all in its 55 years of existence, but admits that can ”” and will ”” change at a phone call”™s notice.
“As soon as we say that, something new comes up,” she said.