Savo Brothers, Inc., a Staten Island, New York, real estate developer, changed its approach to fencing with the construction of Sailor’s Key, a luxury townhome community on Staten Island’s Eastern Shore. In previous developments, as is the case with many residential builders, Savo Brothers did not provide fences for its homes, leaving fence options in the hands of the homeowners.
“We’d let the homeowners choose what kind of fence they wanted, or if they even wanted a fence at all,” says Michael Savo, President of Savo Brothers, Inc. “That didn’t work out because you’d see too many different styles of fences from different manufacturers all throughout the community. There was no uniformity.”
With Sailor’s Key, Savo Brothers decided to provide the same fence product throughout the 90-townhome community to provide the uniformity and a clean look. They hired Gateway Fence, Inc., of Staten Island, a fence contractor with whom they have a long-standing relationship, to help select a fence product and install it.
Preferring the low-maintenance and durability of vinyl fencing, they chose Bufftech™ Chesterfield™ by CertainTeed, with the product’s new CertaGrain™ texture option, in Natural Clay. CertaGrain gives Chesterfield a realistic wood-grain texture allowing the vinyl fence product to authentically emulate traditional wood fencing.
The construction of the development was divided into three phases. With Phase One complete, Gateway Fence began installing the first round of fencing for 48 of the townhomes in September with a crew including Gateway Fence, Inc. President Steve Borruso and two assistants. The crew set fence posts along the perimeter, 34 inches deep, securing each hollow post with two steel rebars inside and filling them up halfway with cement. Gateposts were also secured by two rebars, but were filled up 3/4 of the way with cement. Borruso was impressed with the extra strength of the Bufftech gate pieces.
“The gates are great,” he says. “The aluminum C-channel internal frame really gives the gates a lot of strength.”
Once the posts were set, Borruso and crew put in the rails of the fences. The precision cut of the Buffech pieces, and pickets cut on a slight angle for sloped ground, make installation go a lot more smoothly than with other fence materials
