Edward Ehrbar Company

MARK MARIANI, INC., MARIANI’S GARDEN MARKET
How homebuilding, landscaping expertise have brought success to this upscale builder

Twenty-four years ago, Mark Mariani was an ambitious 17-year-old high school student who drove a truck and pulled a dozer to school every day in order to spend the rest of the day doing grading or landscaping work. Today, he runs Mark Mariani, Inc., a multifaceted business located in Armonk, N.Y., that consists of a landscape division, building division, sitework division and masonry division.

He also owns Mariani’s Garden Market, an upscale garden center and nursery. Under that company he owns several tree farms. He also owns an aviation company in Virginia.

“I worked for a landscaping company as a kid, as well as a tree service and an excavating company, and I loved it all,” said Mariani. “So I just put it all together into one company.”

High End Homes

That company has grown to several hundred employees today who work in all phases of homebuilding and landscaping, concentrating on high-end homes in the Greenwich, Conn., area.

“We’ve combined site work and landscaping from the beginning because they usually go together,” explained Mariani. “With some landscaping jobs you need to move a lot of earth, and there’s always fine grading. We work with big trees and small trees, and for the larger trees we plant, we need large equipment. On the site-work side, even in landscaping, we’re doing drainage work.”

Crews complete from 150 to 200 projects a year that are strictly landscaping jobs and range from $3,000 to $10 million in cost. The work is all for private individuals, some for well-known celebrities, according to Mariani.

The company also usually builds three or four “spec” homes a year, as well as two to three custom projects. Some of these homes run into the 35,000-square-foot range. “We recently sold one home for around $20 million, which set a record in this area for a spec home,” noted Mariani.

Most of their homes today include movie theaters as well as massage rooms, steam sauna rooms and indoor basketball courts. And they’re built on a fast schedule.

“We typically don’t bid on jobs anymore,” Mariani reported. “Clients just call us to build a house because they know our reputation and want it done very quickly. We’ll build a 20,000- square-foot house in six months.”

"Rebuilding" Homes

Mariani says he is constantly buying property in the Greenwich area, typically a home that is from 30 to 40 years old. Then crews demolish the home, resculpt the property and build a new home on the site. “The neighbors love us because we increase the property values in their neighborhood,” he commented.

Mariani does the landscape design work himself and works closely with two architects in designing the homes. “We have the landscaping mostly figured out before we break ground,” he said. “The fun part is executing it.”

Because his responsibilities include “almost everything,” he said, he doesn’t have much time to get out and do the work himself, but enjoys it when he can. “Getting on a machine sometimes for just an hour really relaxes me and clears my mind,” he said.

Ehrbar Customer

Some of those machines came from Edward Ehrbar Inc. in Pelham Manor. Mariani has worked with Sales Representative Bill Tucker for the past seven years but has been an Ehrbar customer for years.

“Bill has been a great support system for us,” Mariani acknowledged. “He’s very honest, he tells us the pros and cons of a new machine, and Ehrbar as a company has been wonderful. They have stood by any issues we’ve had and made everything right. They even sent someone out on Christmas Eve to take care of a problem for us.”

Recent purchases from Ehrbar included a Komatsu BR380JG portable jaw crusher as well as three Komatsu loaders last year — a WA400-5, WA95 and WA50. A WA380 is also used on the jobsites. Mariani uses NPK hydraulic hammers, which are sold and serviced by Ehrbar.

“Particularly in Greenwich, we build on rough lots that are all rock,” Mariani pointed out. “That led me to buy the crusher, which we use in the recycling end of the business. We recycle all the material from the houses we tear down. All the rock and concrete is recycled into the driveway base or sub-base for tennis courts and patios. We also have a vertical grinder to make mulch out of the trees and stumps, and we even run the house through the grinder.”

Mariani also rents equipment from Ehrbar, including Komatsu dozers and Nordberg screens, and trades his equipment in every few years. “I like to keep new equipment because it looks good and the manufacturers are always making them better and more efficient.”

Top Employees

The biggest challenge his company faces, according to Mariani, is balancing jobs when owners want changes or more landscaping done. Weather or site conditions don’t affect them that much, he said, because of his great employees. “My guys are so good and they’re so smart. We all sit down, figure out the problem and just make everything happen.

“I have the best people in the industry, starting from the building division right through the masonry division, the landscape division and the site-work division,” he added. “Those guys have been with me for a long time. Even in the nursery business and my mill shop, the guys are the best of the best in the industry. These guys would do anything for me and I would do anything for them.”

Some are longtime employees and some in the nursery business are brand-new. “I hire the best guys in the business,” he affirmed. “I’m a rather intense guy and I’m the fire behind the whole company. I can inspire people and my energy becomes infectious to them, which is a good thing, and we have a lot of fun.”

Success is all about hard work, he added. “I’m extremely disciplined. I’m in the office by 5 a.m. and I work long hours. I love what I do. I’m passionate about it. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”

Relocating Nursery

Right now Mariani is relocating the nursery to a site where he is tearing down the original structures and adding a café, greenhouses and retail store, an office with a full staff of landscape architects and their own line of garden statuary from Europe.

“It’s all about the feeling and the atmosphere that you create for somebody — like a farmers’ market in the fall,” he elaborated. “It will be a great atmosphere, a great place for people to just come and have a coffee or crepe, or walk through a garden and just relax.”

Looking ahead, Mariani is focused on raising the standard in the nursery industry. “We raised it in the building end,” he said, “and we’re certainly going to do it in the landscape and the garden center end of the business.”

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