Inside the Interiors Group

One of the biggest factors in the early success of Hunter Roberts wasn’t even part of company president Robert Fee’s initial business plan.

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But in early 2006, a chance meeting with Larry Petetti, then an executive with the New York office of Structure Tone, gave Fee and McKenna an idea they hadn’t yet considered.

“We started originally thinking about the Turner model where every unit has an interiors group within it,” says Fee. “But Jimmy and I met Larry at a function down in Florida and we started talking [saying], ‘Wouldn’t this make a lot of sense if we just started something like this on our own?’”

So after 35 years in construction, Petretti decided, like many of his new co-workers did just a year before, to leave a comfortable professional situation and start something new.

“I’d gotten to a point where I’d gone as far as I could go with Structure Tone,” Petretti says. “I don’t think you want to end your career thinking, ‘This is as good as it gets.’ We felt there was a need [for another interiors contractor] at that time and the timing was right. This was an opportunity that could not have been offered to me where I was.

“Sometimes you just take a leap of faith.”

In the first six months, Petretti’s group twice the volume they’d anticipated they’d do in the first year. By the end of 2006, they’d raked in more than $13 million for the company. That number swelled to $68.5 million in 2007 – about 12 percent of Hunter Roberts’ total regional revenue. The company is projecting that by the end of 2008 the revenue from the interiors group will make up as much as 20 percent of the regional total.

“[The interiors group] is an important part of our plan,” says Hunter Roberts CEO Jim McKenna. “The interiors market is big, and even with downturns in the market, if people decide to re-up their leases, the worst case is it’s a paint and carpet job. At best case it’s a full build-out.”

Almost immediately, the interiors group began landing multi-million dollar jobs from Fortune 500 firms and working with the region’s biggest developers. Currently, they’re helming the restoration of the lobby of the Empire State Building, as well as the restoration of the observation deck, one of their most visible projects to date.

“Within a couple months out of the box,” says Petretti, “we landed several notable projects and I knew – not that it was going to be easy – but I knew the community was going to take us seriously and that there was room for us.”