How Michael Palumbo Surfs His Way Forward in Los Angeles – Part 1

Custom Design-Build designer Michael Palumbo remembers the first hard jolt that came in spring 2008, when two major projects disappeared within a month. “It was probably $35 million of work that went away,” Palumbo says. “For me that’s the equivalent of a whole year of work.” While other designers struggled to maintain a semblance of their former business or quietly folded, Palumbo responded with a flurry of innovation in smaller projects, focusing on new specific rooms, products, innovations and the latest in green building materials. Drawing on his ties with prominent residential architects, Palumbo expanded beyond a shrinking luxury building market in Hollywood while leveraging its talented chops to explore entirely new lines of work. Yes, Palumbo readily admits, the boom years were good to him, but he is adamant in his assertion that they are over. “If you’re a designer in Los Angeles just waiting for it to go back to the way it was,” he says, “you’ll be waiting for a while.”

FINDING HIS LEGS IN THE WATER

Michael Palumbo will be the first to tell you he works with a different mindset than your average person. As a kid in California he was an avid surfer, he raced go-karts around the country. This lead him to racing cars professionally where he won numerous awards making it to the Toyota Altantic Championship and PGG Indy Light circuit where he won!  This motivated him to work for his father’s development and construction company every summer to pay for his car-racing career. After taking up construction with his dad, absorbing the business without really trying. During the California winters he helped his mother an interior designer where she was considered one of the best in the industry. “I learned how to swim real well when it came to creating a beautiful home inside and out,” says Palumbo, grinning. “Just like racing cars and surfing, I learned real fast.” Entrepreneurship came to him as naturally as racing and surfing. “I always had my own business,” he says. During high school it was Window Washing and a mobile car detailing business. “The summer before college, I made like $40,000,” he says. “I went to college to major in business but I was already running a successful business.” Once there, he couldn’t stay. “I was in class, and I thought to myself, this is a huge waste of time. Not only is it costing a ton of money, I’m not making any money.’” Architecture may have been a better fit, but true to his restless enterprising nature, Palumbo charted his own course in the design-build profession. He knew how to swim, but now he wanted to surf – his own way.

Designer Michael Palumbo - February 24, 2012

Designers who also are builders are nothing new, but very few deploy their construction crews in the service of their design as opposed to a sole architect, and that is precisely the approach that Palumbo settled on. More than half of Palumbo’s work is for or with architects, and the company has created a niche for itself by partnering with Los Angeles’s most prominent modernist firms.

Palumbo didn’t set out to become a designer/builder, he started out as a General Contractor. “I just sort of followed my nose,” he says. In 1982, he arrived in Arcadia amid the Reagan era. “I met a ton of architects. Nobody was very busy. But it was a good opportunity for me because I was able to network with all these guys and start building and designing in another direction than how my father had been doing it.” And that gave Palumbo the idea for a different kind of building company. “I had always worked in the construction industry,” he explains, and his notion of design and architecture had always been entwined with the construction process, in part, thanks to his mother including him on her interior design work. “I never had a strong desire to just sit and draw pictures.” Putting an architect’s aesthetic sense and design skills out on the jobsite made Palumbo a hit with La’s top modernist firms. “And that…” he says, “…became a really good business plan.” In short order he established a new category in the industry: Palumbo Design – a Design-Build company.

Designer Michael Palumbo - February 24, 2012

“I am the ‘Master’ and the other principals are architects, superintendents and subcontractors. Because I am overseeing it all as a project manager and hold the main vision I am able to keep everyone working cohesively towards the same goal. In the long run, it saves money.” With a skilled designer on the jobsite, the architect can safely put more detail on his drawings. “It is here where I can think about door jambs; and consider the look, feel and placement of the type of cabinets.” When he intends minor building components to align, Palumbo says, “I don’t have to communicate it to the electrician or the plumber or the tile setter. It’s just done.” Of course, a good architect on the team expands Palumbos’ range as a designer, but good design also pushes the abilities of the architect. “We’re always exploring new territory,” says Palumbo, who relies on the architect for feedback on constructability while the developer focuses on cost and keeping within budget.