New builder picks up pieces

By DICK HOGAN, dhogan@news-press.com
 Published by news-press.com on November 9, 2003

From the ashes of one builder’s career in Cape Coral, another’s is rising.

Rob Rimany hired Risley Development two years ago to build him a house in Cape Coral. Owner Harry William Risley never finished the house, and his license to be a contractor in the city lapsed Sept. 30 although his state license is still active.

Meanwhile, Rimany got his own certified building contractor’s license from the state in February and set out to finish his own home as well as some of those whom Risley left with unfinished houses.

Now Rimany’s Alvian Homes does business in offices in the same Cape Coral Parkway building where Risley — who could not be reached for comment — operated. Also in the building: a branch of Pinnacle Mortgage, owned by former Risley customer Brent Rissling.

Jack Jankowski, 59, who hired Risley to build a home for his mother-in-law Carmen Nevarez, said Rimany and Rissling were able to revive his dreams of finishing the house. “If it hadn’t been for those two, Rissling getting financing for me again and Rimany building the house, criminy, it’d never have gotten done. They’ve been able to walk on water as far as I’m concerned.”

Jankowski’s own home is now finished, as is Rissling’s, and Nevarez’s is almost complete.

Rissling calls Rimany “a true man of principle and integrity” who salvaged all their houses from impending financial disaster.

Rimany, who originally came down from New York to work for Risley, said that after things went sour, “I knew I didn’t want to go to work for another guy down here. I’d do what I did in New York: build homes. It forced me into a different direction.”

Now, Rimany said, he’s learned from his experience and from seeing other builders fail in the go-go home construction market in fast-growing Cape Coral.