Murphy's Law: hard work, integrity, reliability, getting the job done on time and within budget—is this any way to build a fortune in South Florida? Sometimes the old fashioned virtues still pay off. This year Coastal construction group will likely sign on $300 million in new jobs, largely because Tom Murphy—plus family and crew—deliver - Tom Murphy - Cover Story

South Florida CEO, March, 2004 by J.P. Faber

Murphy was so moved by the experience that, when his father passed away two years ago, he insisted on holding the ceremony at St. John Neumann.

by 1989, most of Ocean Reef had been built out, and Murphy was looking to move on. Almost by accident, he sold his company to then New York-based Turner Construction, which was looking to buy local firms as a way to expand. He had been having a few holiday drinks with some people from Turner, and mentioned off hand that he'd been working since he was a kid and would like to do some traveling, but that he'd have to close his business. "They told me, 'But you've got such a good business.' And I said if you like it so much, buy it, and then went to the bathroom. By the time I came back they were ready to make an offer."

Murphy took the offer, and moved his family north--first to Weston, and then to Coral Gables. He took some time off to travel and do more boating, and he also insisted his father buy a home in Ireland, where his mom and dad had stayed for years in bed and breakfasts. His father left on that quest, but months later had nothing to show for it. Finally Murphy got a call from his mother, who swore him to secrecy with her news: his father had not even looked at houses, but was busy buying a string of race horses.

"My father was like that. He was a daily communicant, and after that it was golf, horses and pubs. He loved betting. He'd bet you whether the sun would come up tomorrow, if the odds were right." So Murphy flew over and helped find the house, a former priest's home "two Guinesses north of Dublin," as his father put it. And they kept the racing ponies.

Meanwhile, Murphy was busy with his next big project, first rebuilding Ocean Reef (after Hurricane Andrew) and then building out Armando Codina's Deering Bay project on the southern waterfront edge of Coral Gables. Again, he moved into the community, "when Armando made me an offer I couldn't refuse." After Codina sold the project to Bonita-based WCI, Murphy continued to build there, recently finishing a third mid-rise condo tower. But he had already set his sites on other things, and decided that his new company--Coastal Construction--should grow and make room for his sons, two of whom were ready to join him.

And so Coastal began to expand in a steady, orderly fashion. By 1995, the firm was doing $15 million a year, by 1997 it had reached $35 million, by 2000 it was up to $100 million. In 2002 Coastal brought in $150 million in new contracts, and in 2003 it hit $265 million in sales.

Currently, Coastal has about 150 core, full-time employees, with thousands more sub-contracted to work on $350 million worth of jobs in progress. It has a condominium division, a commercial division, a homes division and an interiors division, all of which play off each other and create a synergy that pays off, especially at the high end of construction. For the super-luxury Excelsior in Boca Raton, for example, the developers needed a firm that could handle the heavy construction as well as the fine finishes. "Tom and his organization have the capability to span between typical condo construction and that level of finish you don't find with most contractors," says Jim Comparato, president of Compson Associates, which developed the Excelsior. "Others generally augment their companies with another firm that does the finishes. Any time you can deal with a single source in our industry, you're much further ahead."