iting frustrations with the local pool and spa industry, a few Florida home builders have launched pool companies of their own to construct pools for the homes they build. These home builders see this phenomenon becoming more common.

“I think most companies that are building more than 100 homes a year are looking at the possibility of having their own pool company,” said Lee Wetherington, president of Lee Wetherington Companies in Sarasota, Fla. About two years ago, he began his own pool company, called LeeSure Water Pools. While LeeSure currently builds pools with its own home projects, Wetherington plans to branch out in the next year or so to work directly with homeowners and high-end, custom home builders.

Similarly, national home builder Centex Homes began a pool division in the Orlando area four years ago and plans to branch out through the state. “Centex Homes is building their own pools because they couldn’t find a contractor to deliver a quality product on time,” said Kenneth Gregory, manager of Centex’s pool division in Altamonte Springs, Fla. “But the true motivation to start the division was customer satisfaction. So, in desperation, they decided they might as well do it themselves.”

Wetherington, too, said he started his company as a last resort. “When we surveyed our clients, our pool companies were getting the lowest ratings of all in customer service.” He said complaints ranged from the quality of the tile and deck work to equipment breakdowns. “I’d go out to a job and find out equipment would be installed backward,” he said.
So far, pool builders don’t report much competition. Joan Brown, owner of Pools by Joan Brown in Sarasota, Fla., builds primarily for general contractors, but said she isn’t threatened. Brown said she’s heard no grumblings about her business from her homebuilder clients.

As a pool builder who serves only home builders, Paul Gaetano, president of Coast to Coast Pools in Sarasota, Fla., has experienced workmanship problems himself and has handled it by bringing most of the operations in-house. “In our market, there is just a lack of good trades.”

Wetherington said starting a pool division wasn’t easy because the construction is different. His company prepared for a year before building its first pool and had to invest more than $150,000. “It was a very expensive setup [and] a long, drawn-out situation — training and hiring the people and the subcontractors and getting the computers,” he said. He hired several local pool veterans to help.

Now, Wetherington’s pool division receives the highest customer ratings of all the trades involved in his company’s projects. He said he attributes such performance to higher salaries and less time between paychecks to employees and subcontractors than the local pool industry offers.

Wetherington and Gregory both said the companies they represent would not have chosen to go into the pool business. “Centex Homes is building its own swimming pools because it had to,” Gregory said. “[The company] probably would rather have the pool companies building for them...and get serious about customer service and on-time delivery.” When the pool isn’t completed on time or the pool builder doesn’t address problems with the pool, the home builder gets hit in the end, he said.

But now that they have made the investment and enjoyed the profits, they plan to stay in it. “We like the profit,” Gregory said. “That’s why we’re expanding. But in most of these companies, making a profit isn’t the big thing. It’s customer satisfaction and being able to control the process.”