Christopher Barrett
This LEED Platinum-rated, net-zero energy house overcame the dua…
If one were to design a curriculum for aspiring high-end urban custom builders, it might look a lot like Jake Goldberg’s life. His father, who had studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the 1950s under Mies van der Rohe, ran his architecture firm out of the family’s stately brick Victorian in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. His mother, an interior designer, also worked at home. By the time Goldberg was in high school, he was drafting in the home office off the big oak-paneled entry hall and doing carpentry on the houses his father bought and renovated. He studied economics and finance at the University of Illinois, but a construction career seems never to have been in doubt. “When everyone else was running around and confused about what they were going to do with their lives, he knew exactly what he was going to do,” says Jeff Berry, Goldberg’s lifelong friend and company vice president. “Jake was born with a hammer in his crib.”
The fact that he was born in Chicago adds to Goldberg’s pedigree. Home to Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies, and other giants of the profession, “Second City” is America’s first city of architecture. It was the Chicago School architects of the late 19th century—Sullivan, Henry Hobson Richardson, John Wellborn Root, and others—who laid the groundwork for the European-bred modernism that would flourish here a half century later. Chicagoans can name not only their landmark buildings, but also who the architects were, and the city supports a community of residential modernist architects as vibrant as any in the country. “I remember being a kid and having my father point out architectural gems of the city,” Goldberg says. As a builder he has come to play an active role in preserving the legacy of Chicago’s past masters and furthering the work of the contemporary architects who are their stylistic and spiritual descendants.
None of this happened overnight, of course. “I started Goldberg General Contracting in 1987,” says the builder, now 44. Then fresh out of college, he began with the kind of small projects he had done in his spare time since high school. Berry remembers those days with some amusement. “You always knew it was Jake coming,” he explains. “He had this Econoline van that was the nastiest thing you’ve ever seen. Jake, what color was that original van you had?” Goldberg answers with a trace of nostalgia: “Light blue, with an orange door.”
Home Boys
Chicago builders face a lot of big-city challenges.
When working in high-rise buildings, “You meet the building manager, you
meet the engineer, and build you follow the rules or they kick you
out,” says Jake Goldberg of Goldberg General Contracting (GGC). To
remove demolition debris, “We don’t use dumpsters; we just use pails,
and we take it out a little bit at a time.” Sometimes that means
reserving the freight elevator 48 hours in advance. A recent new-home
building permit cost $45,000, plus a $15,000 surcharge when the project
ran over the 15-month limit.
But to Goldberg and company vice president Jeff Berry (above,
right), Chicago has always been home, and their familiarity makes the
big city seem more like a village. The company’s territory centers on
the Gold Coast, Lincoln Park, and Lakeview neighborhoods where they grew
up. The two met in grade school and first began working together
because Goldberg’s father, Seymour, suggested it. “I was wandering
around, and I ran into Seymour,” says Berry, who was between jobs at the
time. “He said, ‘You should give Jake a call.’”
Many of the company’s projects have also come through family or
neighborhood contacts. But equally important is the community of
architects GGC has cultivated over the years. It was one of the latter
who directed Goldberg to perhaps his most unlikely job: a $3.5 million
addition to the house where he grew up. Sold by his parents years
before, the grand old place awakened many memories, but one piece in
particular seemed to welcome the builder back home. “There was this
porch swing I made when I was in high school,” Goldberg says, “and it
was still there. During the job, our guys used to sit there and eat
lunch.” — B.D.S.
Before long, Berry was riding in the van as well, having joined his friend in the spec rehab of a three-flat apartment building. “Jake literally loaned me the tool belt,” Berry remembers. “We had no money,” Goldberg adds, “so we did everything ourselves: demo, plaster, siding, everything.” When the job was done Goldberg moved into the building, the company set up shop in the basement, and the partners moved on to other projects. The recession of 1990–1991 made further spec renovations unprofitable, so it was back to the kitchens, baths, and basement build-outs. “But there wasn’t enough money to support two principals,” Goldberg says, so the pair split up amicably and Berry moved on to a project management job for a real estate developer.
Goldberg, too, had had aspirations as a developer. But even as a young man, his low-key confidence made him well-suited to custom building—and to building a business. As the projects he took on grew in size and complexity, he kept his company lean, handling all sales and project management himself. He knew from experience in the field that there were certain items over which he wanted to maintain control. Even today, he says, “We really feel we have to self-perform all our carpentry and metalwork, for quality and efficiency. We’ve tried subcontracting out the tilework from time to time, and you just can’t.” Smooth, uniform grout joints, clean welds—“A viewer may not be savvy enough to see all these things, but it will really make a difference in the impact of the building,” he maintains. “That’s the subtlety you’re trying to convey when you’re convincing a client to hire you.” If those sound like the words of a man who views building as more than a means to a financial end, Goldberg readily confirms it. Somewhere along the line, he says, “I realized I loved building. I lost interest in the development part and just focused on building.”
