Accepting Nigel Horonzy's invitation from Season 2, Episode 13 of Crowning Connections, Rob Clemons took the opportunity to see the new Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Myrtle Beach Real Estate Offices. Remodeled by the Horonzy Group, Rob really gets to see this group in action. Enjoy!
Accepting Nigel Horonzy's invitation from Season 2, Episode 13 of Crowning Connections, Rob Clemons took the opportunity to see the new Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Myrtle Beach Real Estate Offices. Remodeled by the Horonzy Group, Rob really gets to see this group in action. Enjoy!
Rob Clemons
Hey, welcome to Crown Connections with Rob Clemons. I'm really, really pumped up today because a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting this guy. Of course, we known each other for a little while, but Nigel Horonzy at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. And when during our podcast, which was just too good not to have another one, we talked about this place. This beautiful building that you have here located in sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. So today, we're going to take a little time walk through it. Nigel, man, how've you've been.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah, great, man. Great to see you again. Great to see you.
Rob Clemons
I got my coffee. So I'm all fired up. I'm ready to go.
Nigel Horonzy
I love it. I love it. We'll slow down. Let you run some too.
Rob Clemons
So I'm gonna have to run a couple of laps.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Rob Clemons
Well, you want to take the tour?
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah, let's take the tour. So just start off here on the front. We got it this entire building. All the windows, everything. So originally, there was two small windows upstairs, very small. And two very small down here. So as you can see, we put in a floor to ceiling windows. Our own awning. And just you know, made it a made it look nice.
Rob Clemons
Super cool. I love what you do with the ivy. Is this real ivy?
Nigel Horonzy
Don't touch it. Don't touch it.
Rob Clemons
Can I eat this ivy?
Nigel Horonzy
No. Yeah. But it's cool. It's a cool feature, but come on in. . So when we got this building, it was about the darkest saying that you could see. It had about eight foot ceilings. You know, here's It had three offices. And we took and we gutted the entire thing from floor to ceiling. And we decided to have an open concept, as you can see, with all of our open ceilings. We got, you know, our wall of moss.
Rob Clemons
I love it.
Nigel Horonzy
Sometimes we call it our weed wall.
Rob Clemons
Do you tell people this is what it looks like it you don't do pillar maintenance?
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah, yeah, yes. Yeah.
Rob Clemons
I love the way that looks.
Nigel Horonzy
And that was fun trying to put together it was. It's not as easy as it looks.
Right! Well, it never is.
Yeah.
Rob Clemons
And that's the beauty of it. So were you were you the one who had the little glue gun and you're like...
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah, I started with it, then I'll call it somebody. Yeah, yeah, definitely started it.
Rob Clemons
Love the backlit sign.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah.
Rob Clemons
Definitely cool.
Nigel Horonzy
Absolutely. And that's down to this. My decorator who was trying to sell me this table for about four years. And I could never find a place for it. And finally we got it.
Rob Clemons
I tell you this looks expensive.
Nigel Horonzy
And it was nice.
Rob Clemons
Yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
For sure, for sure. Very cool. And take the you know, we've got our coffee bar set up here.
Rob Clemons
Nice. So as anybody who knows me knows I love a good coffee once in a while.
Nigel Horonzy
Yes.
Rob Clemons
What kind of coffee do you have? Full service?
Nigel Horonzy
Well, you'll have to ask them because I don't drink it. But they got your menu here.
Rob Clemons
Holy cow. So it's like I come in. I'm like I'll have a Arandio? I can't even pronounce these? It's pretty, pretty classy joint here.
Nigel Horonzy
Absolutely. Absolutely. And then down to... if you check out these walls here, we purposely did a lot of things. So these gray tiles here are for echoes and their acoustics.
Rob Clemons
That's awesome. So one thing I will say about these is we looked at our office you do get a lot of that going in.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah.
Rob Clemons
So these absorb the sound. Yeah, definitely cool. I need my marketing team looking into it. And by the way, are you guys gonna be doing the Dragon Boat again this year?
Nigel Horonzy
We do it every year.
Rob Clemons
Oh, now.
Nigel Horonzy
Now, now didn't didn't flip your boat one year?
Rob Clemons
That was before me.
Nigel Horonzy
Okay, okay.
Rob Clemons
It is true, in year one, Monarch Roofing flipped their boat, but then year two Rob Clemons came around everything's fine.
Nigel Horonzy
Then it got good.
Rob Clemons
We're winning everything now.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. That's good. I love it. Yeah, absolutely. And as you're coming through here, in all these doors, they go all the way back to open it up.
Rob Clemons
So cool. So you want to open concept. And by the way, we get our receptionist here.
Nigel Horonzy
This is actually one of our agents here.
Rob Clemons
Hi, how are you? She's the first friendly face when people come through.
Nigel Horonzy
It's the best.
Rob Clemons
Yeah, that's very, very cool.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah, yeah. And so as you come in through here, we actually hand picked all the pictures. These are all Myrtle Beach pictures. This is where Ripley's Believe It or Not is on the Pavilion.
Rob Clemons
Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
Matter of fact, my dad worked here when he was a kid.
Rob Clemons
Ripley's Believe It or Not, was here.
Nigel Horonzy
Yep, this ocean that's Ripley's in. It was Sloppy Joes back then.
Rob Clemons
No kidding. So your dad, because you guys are born and raised here. You've been here awhile.
Nigel Horonzy
He worked there. I thought it was neat. And then here's here's some more offices or administrative office managers.
Rob Clemons
Very good. How are you?
Nigel Horonzy
Our other office manager, Deborah.
Rob Clemons
Deborah, how are you? It's an nice office you have here.
Nigel Horonzy
She's keeping us all straight.
Rob Clemons
Are you a coach? I see the coach.
Nigel Horonzy
She's a coach. She's a babysitter. The Mama. German orchestra it used to be the Pavilion.
Rob Clemons
Wow. Now this is okay. Now remember this, when I was a kid coming through?
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah.
Rob Clemons
Now here's a question for you. How much do you miss the Pavilion?
Nigel Horonzy
I miss it. Yeah, yeah. I had a grandmother that worked there for 35 years.
Rob Clemons
Nice. What was your favorite ride at the Pavilion? Do you remember?
Nigel Horonzy
Oh, gosh.
Rob Clemons
Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
I don't know. The corkscrew was fun when they had that.
Rob Clemons
I was gonna say, the corkscrew. This is a true story. Alright, now I'm gonna let you into my life.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah.
Rob Clemons
So I'm a little kid. I'm about eight years old. And I'm like, I don't think I want to get on this thing because it did have the one that would take you upside down. And I'm like, with my friend, I'm like, "oh, yeah, I don't know if I want to go up there." And I see some little girl that was like seven years old. I'm like, "Get on the ride." I love amusement parks.
Nigel Horonzy
I love it. I love it. But we got you know, just more offices that you go through here. And we went ahead and frosted these windows. You had some privacy since it was all wide open. And we're close spaced.
Rob Clemons
I think it's so important that you really keep that light coming down the hallway. It was so dark in here.
Nigel Horonzy
Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely absolutely. Fat Harold's down here. Our bathrooms, when we were doing it, in I'll show you the table if they leave, but we had this made out of pecan.
Rob Clemons
Wow.
Nigel Horonzy
Locally. Yep.
Rob Clemons
And then you you're getting the spare you spare no expense. Man. This is crazy. The sink and everything.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah, yes. So we're proud of that one.
Rob Clemons
You even put a urinal on the wall.
Nigel Horonzy
You've got to. Then our downstairs kitchen serves two purposes. So for our construction company, these are the cabinets that we put in, here's the pulls that we put in. These are the appliances that we use. So this is you know, some of the granites. So that way, you can come and see what the finished product will look like.
Rob Clemons
So Nigel, tell me about you know, we're talking 2022. Is everything like easy close and all that good stuff.
Nigel Horonzy
You know. Yeah, it's decent. Yeah. These
Rob Clemons
are the days of slamming your stuff. Absolutely.
Nigel Horonzy
Absolutely. Like it. taking you back to here. You know, we have more offices, more restaurants, then a work area.
Rob Clemons
How many? How many people? Can you fit in the LME? Like how many workstations you have here? Oh, gosh,
Nigel Horonzy
I'd have to count them up again. But you know, it's probably fitting 40 3040. But yeah, as you can see, we got spaces here and then we're doing a tour. Yeah, yeah. Taking them. So like this office? Yes. Wide open, then out here. Which is a little messy right now. Yeah. Because we haven't cleaned it up
Rob Clemons
a lot of Berkshire. I want to buy Berkshire Hathaway when I come
Nigel Horonzy
back here. Yeah. Yeah. So this is getting cleaned up. And we got a grill out here that will get set up. Now the weather's getting a little bit better. So do
Rob Clemons
you find it? Like, you know, do you a lot of your employees use this? Yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
So some of the agents come out, and they'll have the computers out. And when it's nice, we'll eat out here. You know,
Rob Clemons
it's cool. You know, a lot of companies have been talking about this over the years talking about the idea of, you know, given outdoor space. cheerfulness all Yes. I know what the monarch office is. I've had people asking about putting up a table out there for a long time. Yes. I'm not quite as nice as
Nigel Horonzy
you. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, everybody. Yeah. We got a lot of collabs faces out here. You know, we keep people together. We like the synergy that it builds, you know, when people are closer together, it builds a lot more synergy, you know, so, but yeah, there's sometimes Great, well, Friday, we'll barbecue out a little bit and do
Rob Clemons
more building events and stuff like that. eautiful.
Nigel Horonzy
And I'll take you upstairs. But yeah, it was figuring out, you know, the exact dimensions of where to put the pipes in. And then, you know, I was like, "Okay, well, I want to add the crown." You know, they look, it was a little details for me.
Rob Clemons
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
that, you know, people don't notice, but when I got in here, I'm like, I know that needs to be done. We're know we gotta wrap these things at the front.
Rob Clemons
When you come down to it. You guys have an interior designer on staff, or do you hire some 3rd party?
Nigel Horonzy
Well, I had some body design it out for me third party. Which they did the front, I changed a lot of the stuff kind of mid construction, just because that's the industry I'm in. I knew, you know, I didn't need a 600 watt panel box in the back. So you know, I made it all work. And then we made some changes as we went along.
Yeah, very cool.
Maybe just to make it cool. Little details. Yeah, yeah, they had leftover and I'm like, you know, let's wrap it even though you're not gonna take your eye up there much. Just it bothered me.
Rob Clemons
All right. That's a sign of greatness man. Yeah, the little things get to you.
Nigel Horonzy
And taking you up here, a couple more pictures. What's cool about this jack Thompson, he's a you know, a famous photographer. We got to pick where we wanted to add the colors.
Rob Clemons
Oh, nice.
Nigel Horonzy
You know, into like the black and white.
Rob Clemons
Yeah, yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
But that's Pavilion again and Brookegreen. Of course pavilion again toward Myrtle Beach. If you go yeah, this was out in front of the Pavilion.
Rob Clemons
Man.
Nigel Horonzy
This is our phone booth.
Rob Clemons
Now you've been... a phone booth? So you actually go in and ah...
Nigel Horonzy
That's our phone booth so you can go in, face the wall and just start talking to us. Now, you see, you can't hear a word. Right? Not a word.
Rob Clemons
No way, man.
Nigel Horonzy
Not a word. Yeah,.
Rob Clemons
You know, I couldn't do this at my office. Like you have a lot of trust for your employees.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah.
Rob Clemons
So did you consider like doing like one of those old school British phones?
Nigel Horonzy
I thought about it. I thought about it, but you know, sticking with our modern themes. It was actually harder to find, believe it or not.
Rob Clemons
Yeah, yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
I think I found this in New York. We had to put it together and it was fun. That's impressive that like it and then I'm taking you through here we've got a lot more about top producers. Workspace for everybody.
Rob Clemons
Nice.
Nigel Horonzy
Yes and assistants and stuff that are up here
Rob Clemons
So it how's it work? Like if you're do the best agent stay on the ground floor?
Nigel Horonzy
No, no. They gravitate.
Rob Clemons
Like is there a basement down there. Like until you sell something you're not coming out.
Nigel Horonzy
No, no. They gravitate. But yeah, upstairs kitchen, obviously, a lot of spins down to like these windows. I was coming up with a design actually got this out of Miami. A guy out of Miami to design this all for me.
Rob Clemons
Wow.
Nigel Horonzy
And I thought it was cool to have our logos.
Rob Clemons
That's really, really cool.
Nigel Horonzy
This is our upstairs conference room today. It served as a little podcast room.
Rob Clemons
I know how that feels nice.
Nigel Horonzy
We got it a little junked up right now.
Rob Clemons
And I saw Marvin downstairs. He's like full strength. Like this is so legit guys that you know people like not even stopping working.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah.
Rob Clemons
Except for you and me, of course. But everybody else is working. It's great. It's awesome.
Nigel Horonzy
Absolutely.
Rob Clemons
Now what is this here like? I see ocean forest. But is that is that in North Myrtle Beach?
Nigel Horonzy
They tore this down now?
Rob Clemons
Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
It's the first million dollar hotel in Myrtle Beach.
Rob Clemons
Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
And they tore this down. This is on cabana row. If you know where cabana row is? Yeah, that's where the ocean force was.
Wow. Okay
So another piece of history.
Rob Clemons
That's looks like a phenomenal building. One thing I was gonna ask you. Okay, so you've been here for a while. Do you remember a place called Magic Harbor?
Yes.
Okay, so it was like, it's so vague to me. But um, this is a little Myrtle Beach history. If you ever been thinking about going to Myrtle Beach? Somebody infamously died in at a Magic Harbor. Have you ever heard that story? They had this roller coaster called the Black Witch.
Okay. This is the one on 17 by the campground.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm really in somebody's like, near the end or somewhere died. And I think they sued the park. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. Happy stories.
Nigel Horonzy
This is the Chapin building where Matallana says, I'm on the board of this company. But the two story golf course or putt putt is here.
Rob Clemons
Okay. Yes. Gotcha.
Nigel Horonzy
So bring it in.
Rob Clemons
And that's, that's cool. Are you are you big putt putt guy?
Nigel Horonzy
I am because we're in the business.
Rob Clemons
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Your skills are off the chain. Yeah, perfect.
Nigel Horonzy
But, you know, wrapping everything. With Marvin, tobacco barns from Socastee. He was from that area. This is his office here.
Rob Clemons
You know, there was a there was a time in Myrtle Beach or Well, South Carolina in general, where tobacco was a big part of our industry, right? I mean, now it's probably, you know, like, number 900 or something. But you know, there was a time it was kind of cool.
Nigel Horonzy
A big industry here. Absolutely. But we have more more places here. You know, get our stuff this looped up and telling you from the TV.
Rob Clemons
I said and I like the fact that there's like all the birthday recognition. And is this, is this Marvin's birthday yesterday?
Nigel Horonzy
Yesterday.
Rob Clemons
Oh, okay. All right. Good. Because I have a gift in the trunk.I mean, I'll give it to him. Next time we're out here. It's all good.
Nigel Horonzy
I love it. But taking you back into, you know, just more more workspaces. Hustler stations.
Rob Clemons
Hustler stations. Yes I like it.
Nigel Horonzy
This is our in house architects in house. Perfect. So he's dwelling all of our floor plans and helping us on our projects. Wow. So can it
Rob Clemons
can I show the new stuff like like, don't tell anybody? That's pretty. That's pretty awesome. What do you find that people are looking for in homes nowadays? I mean, we went through, if you go back to the early, late 2000s, you were still seeing homes that were kind of partitioned. And then we went to these wide open floor plans. Right? Everything is that so that's still the way to go. Absolutely wide
Nigel Horonzy
open everything.
Rob Clemons
Lots of Windows,
Nigel Horonzy
lots of windows glass, it slides out. We did ones with the corners where the glass would be corners. Oh boy, and it would open up all the way expensive,
Rob Clemons
right? I mean, these ones are Yeah, you gotta You gotta love a window.
Nigel Horonzy
More pavilion stuff. Nice. And then this is my office and wow,
Rob Clemons
man, that's pretty nice in here.
Nigel Horonzy
It's a mess.
Rob Clemons
Yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
But we do... like our selections here. We have some of the different stuff that we add into our houses. Yeah. You know, so the cabinets and
Rob Clemons
So what do you say like, you know, when when you're looking at people, and you know, people are looking at buying homes. You're an expert in the industry, for sure. What do you find are the most common things people are really asking for in a house now? You know, somebody comes in, they're like, I need a house. I won't something you know is granite tops a must nowadays? Or what have you seen?
Nigel Horonzy
You don't even see Formica. I don't know anybody that makes it.
Rob Clemons
Right.
Nigel Horonzy
I mean, I'm sure there is right. Right. But nobody...
Rob Clemons
Probably costs more than granite now. Because you can't find it.
Nigel Horonzy
Right. And you know, I don't find carpet me. We don't do carpet in our houses.
Rob Clemons
Yeah. Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
All of them. And it doesn't matter if it's a 1300 square foot house on the lower end. We don't use carpet period.
Rob Clemons
Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
We're using a laminate or we're using a wood to glue down.
Rob Clemons
Like LVP LVT. Okay, gotcha.
Nigel Horonzy
Granite in every, you know, every bathroom, everywhere. So we just do the little extras, the nice trim package. People love a trim package.
Rob Clemons
Yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
You know. It makes a difference.
Rob Clemons
Makes a house! You know, I did when I was in homebuilding. I used to tell people like if you're, if you're willing to spend some money on the house, make sure you're doing the kitchen, the master bathroom, that's a biggie. And if you do those things, they'll usually bring back some good return on investment. And I've heard now now you can tell me this clarify for the people. So if you do landscaping, I have heard that good landscaping can be worth three times the amount you spend on it. So spend $10,000, it's worth $30,000. What do you think?
Nigel Horonzy
I don't know. You know, I think if you could go and spent $10,000 inside the house, it could be worth $30,000. Oh, for sure. When you haven't like the double chair rails and the extra moldings everywhere, but a good landscaping package is definitely nice.
Rob Clemons
It makes it difference. Well, in any more, than communities around Myrtle Beach, they're making you do nice landscaping.
Nigel Horonzy
Most of our communities, we have to submit the landscaping plan. I got one that they required me to put $7,000 worth of stuff in there and they go and count the plants.
Rob Clemons
Oh yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
They go and count exactly how much they cost.
Rob Clemons
My favorite was when they used to do that and they give you the wholesale prices. You know, "Oh, no, you can buy that bush for...."
Nigel Horonzy
And can I buy them from you?
Rob Clemons
Yeah, right. Right. Exactly. And you can ship them on out here for me?
Nigel Horonzy
Absolutely.
Rob Clemons
It's awesome.
Nigel Horonzy
That's a that's happening.
Rob Clemons
The place is beautiful. I mean, you've done a lot of lot of good work out here. I would love to have seen what it looked like beforehand. That's the mystery to me.
Nigel Horonzy
The funny part about this one is this was a brothel upstairs.
Rob Clemons
Oh Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
Wow. So when I bought it, they had bedrooms they rented out by the night.
Rob Clemons
Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
There were five baths. Here. Five showers.
Rob Clemons
Okay.
Nigel Horonzy
Five showers upstairs. And there was all these little rooms.
Rob Clemons
Yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
And apparently they would come through... a back door and come through here.
Rob Clemons
Got you. Do you ever work and just sit here thinking about that? Like here I am. I'm trying to design plans. And I'm like...
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah, that made me like, thankful that I got it the whole place.
Rob Clemons
That is true. Yeah, exactly. Lots of air freshener in here and stuff.
Nigel Horonzy
We got all the bad juujuu out.
Rob Clemons
No, that's cool. I was gonna ask, I was gonna say is this like a little secret getaway door?
Nigel Horonzy
That's my Bat Escape.
Rob Clemons
Oh, yeah. Right. Right. You just slide down.
Nigel Horonzy
I park my car out there and sneak out.
Rob Clemons
I see the Batmobile down there. That was pretty cool.
Nigel Horonzy
Yeah.
Rob Clemons
Do you like chrome at nighttime as well? I had a feeling about you. No, this is this beautiful night you guys have done amazing job. What do you think's the biggest difference maker that this has done for your company to have this building?
Nigel Horonzy
We're bringing prople closer together for one, you know, other building one, they wouldn't sell it to me. And so what needed to be updated? Well, it was so big that people were just spread out. You didn't see him and but having everybody closer together.
Rob Clemons
Yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
I think it's important because they'll hear me down and you're doing a deal. Or they'll hear you know, and so we can yell back stuff. Back and forth. So you'll see us, you know, yelling down the hall and people here. No, I got you.
Rob Clemons
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Nigel Horonzy
So it works very well keeping us closer together. And we work harder and drive each other.
Rob Clemons
Yeah.
Nigel Horonzy
You know. So I think that's probably the biggest win.
Rob Clemons
It's it's almost like you know, and we use this analogy. Sometimes it's like, if you ever watch them, or you're on track, you might think you're running pretty fast.
Nigel Horonzy
Yes.
Rob Clemons
And then you see somebody else get on the track. And they're running right by you like, wow, I gotta pick up the pace.
Nigel Horonzy
Yes.
Rob Clemons
So we can kind of breed the competitiveness with each other, but in a good way, right. And push each other. Very cool. Very cool. Well, did we miss anything? I mean, this is I don't think there's
Nigel Horonzy
down to all of our art and man, you know, different things like that. It's important to us.
Rob Clemons
It's beautiful. Well, listen, I appreciate this opportunity today. I think you get amazing offers amazing company as always. And definitely look forward to catching up with you again soon. All right, brother. Thank you, man. And this Rob Clemons signing out with Crowning Connections. We'll see you guys next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai