Firm builds big business off teardowns

The luxury homebuilding teardown trend — sending a wrecking ball into a million-dollar home, then building a new house on the same lot  — goes back at least 40 years.

That’s when Richard Perrone started Perrone Construction, in 1980. Back then, maybe one in four homes the firm built, Perrone says, were teardown projects. Today, nearly every home the Sarasota-based custom homebuilder constructs starts from a teardown. The company has demolished at least five houses in recent months, including one, built in 1990, that the client bought pre-teardown for $9.85 million.