Builder, risk taker, profit maker
Silvestri family stamps self-made on its trade

By DENIS PAISTE
Union Leader Staff

SALEM - Risk is reward, says Salem builder Christian Silvestri, and he has several recent awards to support his philosophy.

The Blue Chip Enterprise Initiative Awards program took note of his achievements recently, as did the New Hampshire Builders Association, which gave him a sales and marketing award.

There's no denying Silvestri grew up in a family of builders, but it wasn't always a joy ride, he said.

"I've been doing it since I was 8 years old with my grandfather, William R. Silvestri," said Christian, now 26.

But, he said, "I've seen my father (William E. Silvestri) go through recessions and depressions. I used to come home from school and see him looking sickly because he didn't know what to do next. I kept asking myself why I am getting into this with what my father's going through, but I wanted to achieve, I like risk.

"My father always said if you can get up every day and look in the mirror and say you didn't do anything wrong, then you always were playing a heads up game," he said.

Today, the Silvestris have a group of related companies that do commercial and residential construction.

"We have a mix, and we've done everything-hotels, medical and dental offices, assisted living, car washes," Silvestri said.

"Silvestri Development is my company, it's still a family business, and I still have my father and my grandfather working for me," he said.

"I used to work for my grandfather. We were getting so busy with commercial work, I decided to open Silvestri Development and my father maintained the residential."

Dunlap Woods Development Corp. is run by Christian and his father, William E. Silvestri. Silvestri Construction Corp. handles the commercial side, much of it in Massachusetts.

Silvestri Corp., a close-knit company of 14 employees, has annual sales of between $12 million and $14 million. "This year it'll be greater than that," he said. William E. Silvestri is president of Silvestri Corp. and Christian Silvestri is vice president.

Current projects include a bed-and-breakfast renovation at the Highlander Inn in Manchester; a 13,000-square-foot production facility for Sal's Pizza in Salem; and new homes in Bedford, Londonderry, Salem, Windham, and Dover.

Cornerstone Crossing in Dover features 24 lots with single-family homes priced in the $130,000 to $140,000 range, whereas Windham Secret, behind Searles Castle in Windham, has only four lots in the $400,000s.

"We've also just won a national award in the home building industry for Dunlap Woods in Bedford," Silvestri said. The National Association of Home Builders cited Silvestri for the best single-family, detached homes between $250,000 and $300,000;.

"What differentiates us (from) any other builder is we are on our jobs all the time, either me or my father," Silvestri said. "We work very closely with the clients, not just our supervisors or project managers. That gives the client a sense of satisfaction that we put pride into our work, we pride ourselves on our quality."

"Any house that we build, we could just go up and go in for a cup of coffee," he said, "and I live in one of our developments, that's how confident I feel."

Highlander Inn owner and operator Peter Morgan said he chose Silvestri after interviewing several contractors for the 22-room, $600,000 renovation of the former Elm Tops building.

"They were sensitive to the renovation needs in dealing with an older building," Morgan said. "And they communicated their experience in dealing with these kinds of challenges. You're dealing with up-front, straightforward, honest folks, and that was seemingly palpable in the interview."

"In the context of construction projects, this wasn't an overwhelmingly large project, but their whole management team was on the site through the course of the construction, so they really pay attention to their projects," he said.

Morgan, whose inn is adjacent to Manchester Airport, credited Silvestri with finding creative ways to get things done economically. "The project superintendent has been really excellent in coordinating all the different sub-trades and really participating and working on the building as well," he said.

"We created some incentives for them, if they could find a ways to get work done more efficiently." the result has been a bonus for both, he said.

The Highlander Inn project was expected to be completed this week.

Despite his success so far, Silvestri takes to heart a lesson learned from his father: "what you don't know will kill you."

Whether the issue is legal, or real estate-related, or something else, he said, "That little piece that you don't know...will leave you open for other people to take advantage."

"I'm dealing with engineers every day and they tell me I can't do things, and they're not always right," he said. "If I didn't know, then I would have less lots or my basements would flood.

"They told me to build at an elevation, and I told the it would flood; they raised it a foot, and I was fine," he said. "The greatest risk of all is not to take any risks, because you'll always be asking yourself, 'What if I did that? Would I have succeeded?' "

Despite taking a lead in his own company, Silvestri retains close ties with his family. "I broke out from working for my father to going on my own, but at the same time remaining a principal of one of my father's companies," he said.

"Staying together makes us stronger."