Pete Figueroa, Home Builder : Builder Looks Back After Building a Life

From the balcony of the $1.2-million mansion in San Clemente, home builder Pete Figueroa recalled the days when he lived in the back seat of an abandoned car.

He did not speak English, and because of his slight build at age 17, he had trouble persuading construction contractors to hire him as a day laborer.

Almost 20 years later, his face beaming with pride, Figueroa, 37, looks over the six-bedroom house with 7 1/2 bathrooms and five fireplaces that he has just built. In the last 14 years, Figueroa believes he has constructed about 70 homes from San Clemente to Beverly Hills.

The depressed real estate market troubles him, but Figueroa knows he will survive it.

Figueroa said a friend asked him, “Pete, what happens if the market goes to hell? What are you going to do?” And he replied, “I will go to where I started. I will go work for somebody else again. As long as God gives me health, that’s all I need.”

Figueroa, a San Clemente resident, came to the United States like many other migrant workers, by paying a “coyote” to guide him across the Mexican border.

Border Patrol officials “sent us back at least seven or eight times,” he recalled with a chuckle. “They had me running and walking--you name it--through the hills. It was raining. Oh boy, it was rough.”

Life did not get easier once he arrived. Although his brother had arranged housing for him in a home shared by other immigrants, Figueroa was evicted after a week because there was no room for him.

For the next two months, he slept in the abandoned car. He picked strawberries, worked as a dishwasher and begged for work.

One day, after stronger men had been chosen for work by a Japanese gardener, Figueroa jumped into the pickup truck anyway and refused to get off, even though the gardener said he would not pay him.

“Fine, as long as I go to work and learn something,” he remembers telling the boss. “He did not give me anything for the first couple of days, and then he gave me a dollar a day for a week and then $2 and then $3.”

A year later, Figueroa began working at construction sites on a regular basis, moving materials, sanding wood and doing other odd jobs. He studied how the work was done and began buying his own tools by setting aside a little money from each week’s pay.

Laid off after a couple of years on the job, Figueroa decided to work for himself. Smaller jobs, such as installing windows, led to home remodeling and additions.

Armed with references from clients and a good credit rating, Figueroa asked his bank for a loan to buy land and then build on it. P&F; Enterprises became a reality.

Figueroa says he still toils side-by-side with his employees. He wants to teach the immigrants the trade so that they, too, can make it on their own. He advises them to always pay their bills, keep the promises they make, obey the law and work hard.

“If you do it honestly,” he tells them, “it’s like God helps you every time you turn around.”