Working For My Father

In February of 1996, I went to work for my Father's Firm, The Lawrence Group Architects in Palm Beach, Florida. My father's practice focused more on higher end projects than Forum. My father  has a large and diverse body of good work. He is a talented and well respected architect. Not only had he done a great number of good buildings but he is also adept at resolving complicated zoning issues.  Most of the eastern part of Worth Avenue has his fingerprints on it. I’m very proud of him.

It was great to work on higher end projects after spending years doing mostly apartment buildings and clubhouses. He always gave me the small, fussy projects. My father was trying to increase my proficiency as quickly as he could. The type of construction was entirely different from central Florida so I had a lot of catching up to do. Many of the projects were very interesting. I enjoyed the interiors work I did in apartments as I’d never worked with high end finishes before. I once figured out how to hang a 20,000 pound bank vault inside the second floor of an existing building. I also did the renderings and models that weren't farmed out

My father and I didn't work well together. There is no other way to say it. I'm sure in our own ways we were both responsible for it not working out. It didn't go very well pretty much from the start. When I started work there, we had an agreement that he would eventually retire and I would take over the practice. I never would have worked with him without that understanding. Any time I brought something in he'd say we were too busy. I lost a very good institutional client that I had cultivated for years because he wouldn't let me take the work on.

There were members of his staff who were not thrilled with my entry into the business so there was friction pretty much from the start. I was given no input into the running of the practice which was frustrating. It was very different than when I worked at Forum where my opinion was sought and valued. It was demoralizing to come back into his practice after looking forward to working with him all those years and have it go so badly. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life.

About four years into my stint in his practice, my father changed his mind and decided that he didn’t want to retire. I’m not really sure when that was, but he announced his decision to continue to run the firm until he was fed “feet first through the front door” in a staff meeting. Since it was obvious that I had no future at the firm, I resigned a few weeks later. He was noticeably relieved by my decision. What I didn’t understand at the time was that he just couldn’t retire. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he did. He is still practicing today. He really likes what he does and he is good at it. There is no reason for him to quit.

In retrospect I’m glad to have gone my own way. I had a lot more struggles and it cost me a great deal of money in start up costs and lost wages but what I have is mine and I’ve done it on my own. I’ve also had the luxury of doing it my way. The kind of control and freedom you have in your own business is great. It makes up for the long hours and other headaches. I’ll blog more about those later.