NAPLES ILLUSTRATED

LEAP OF FAITH

Rick and Kathy Harwick once lived in a space smaller than a guest closet in one of their estate homes.

Before starting Harwick Homes, the couple took a year off to live on their 37-foot sailboat. Although they experienced the ultimate waterfront locations, their life aboard lacked the spaciousness associated with the homes they now build.

Rick taught shop and industrial arts for seven years for 7th to 12th graders at a small school in Northern Michigan, and Kathy was a nurse when they sold everything to go sailing. "I was burned out at the age of 29," Rick says. On the way home from Florida to Michigan at the end of their sail, they both got jobs in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. By the time they returned to Michigan to pick up some things and start their new lives, Rick says they felt they had gone too quickly from the slow lane to the fast. "As soon as we hit Michigan, we thought, "What did we just do?" We took our original jobs for a year."

Then with a two-month old baby and a VW diesel Rabbit, they drove to Naples in June 1986 to start over - doing what, they weren't sure. They knew there was tremendous growth potential in the community from things they heard as they sailed, and Kathy's folks had wintered here. "We just hoped we could be successful," Rick says.

Kathy got a job as a nurse, Rick found work installing cabinets and as a construction supervisor for a low-end homebuilder and soon began to study for his general contractor's license. After he got his license, he built his own spec home in Imperial Golf Estates in 1987. From that model, he said he got enough business to last for 1 ½ years. "I was a one-man show - from the secretary to the superintendent," he says. His first house was 2,600 square feet and sold for $235,000. In 1989, he began building in Bonita Bay, where he worked almost exclusively for 10 years, building 10 to 12 homes a year. Now, he has models and homes in most high-end communities, and a model the company is building in the Estuary in Naples is listed at $6 million.

It was about 1989 when Kathy left nursing to go into real estate. She worked for someone else while she studied for her broker's license, and then left to join the family business, where she does sales and marketing. Now, the company employs 37 and deals with 230 different vendors and suppliers. "We make more money than we did when I was teaching," Rick says, laughing.

How is what you do now similar to your past life?

The ages are different, the stakes are higher, but the people and the games are the same." Rick says. "In other words he learned everything he knows teaching school," Kathy adds. "It's like working in neonatal intensive care - you are meeting different people and providing a service."

When you were a child, did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?

"No, I changed majors five times in college," Rick says. "I think I always pretty much wanted to be a nurse," Kathy says, "I thought maybe I wanted to be a teacher until I helped out in grade school."

What advice do you give to your children about their future?

"Do something you enjoy," Rick says. "We see too many people who are in business who don't like what they do. Many times, people don't change because they are in a comfort level.