Carmen Dominguez breaks the male hold on contracting with grace and gusto

Dec. 3--The little pink cell phone rings every other minute. It's like a warning buzzer that life is on overload.

Carmen Dominguez, the most successful female home builder in Central Florida -- a rare dose of estrogen in an industry famous for testosterone -- is surrounded by painters, electricians, landscapers, decorators and cable workers, all working at once to finish a three-story, 8,600-square-foot, solid concrete, energy-efficient international prototype dubbed The New American Home. On this recent Friday afternoon, she is 12 hours away from her final deadline on the project.

But the phone won't stop ringing.

First the auto mechanic about her Audi. Then a question from her daughter, Cristina, soon to be married. Then Latina Style magazine, which wants to give Dominguez an award at a national convention next week -- not that she has time to receive it.

"Ay-yi-yi," Dominguez says. She shakes her head, feigning exasperation.

But a little smile betrays her. Carmen Dominguez loves this business, even at its chaotic climax. She thrives on it. In fact, the more impossible a challenge seems, the sweeter the conquest.

"There is no such thing as an obstacle in her life -- period," says Cristina Dominguez, 29, the younger of Carmen's two children. "If someone says no, that means yes. Like when we traveled, we used to go to the hottest restaurant where there were no reservations available for six months -- and yet she would find a way to get us in. She would come in there and pretend like she was Princess Diana."

It wasn't that many years ago that Dominguez was known mainly as a stay-at-home mom and doctor's wife. In 1991, at age 42 and facing a divorce from the man she had been involved with since she was a teenager, she enrolled in contractor's school, two decades past her college days. She barely spoke English, let alone the distinct dialect of the construction business. Yet in 1999, she opened her own business -- Homes by Carmen Dominguez -- selling custom homes for $600,000 to several million dollars apiece. Last year, her company was named "Business of the Year" by the Hispanic Business Initiative Fund of Greater Orlando and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metro Orlando.

And last month she took the helm of the Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando -- becoming both the first woman and the first Hispanic to lead the group.

"This is a man's world," says Bill Silliman, honored as the local HBA's 2006 builder of the year. "What she's done -- well, it just can't be done. I mean, really think about it -- her children are leaving the nest, she's in a failing marriage, she doesn't know how she's going to support herself, so she picks this wildly impossible dream. And then she fulfills it all. It's the great American story."

A worldwide stage

In the historic Eola Heights neighborhood of downtown Orlando, The New American Home is a funky, angular tribute to modernism and innovation. Within the nation's housing industry, it is considered the most prestigious project by a single builder, showcasing pioneering design changes and features that set new standards. Each year, it is built in the host city of the massive International Builders' Show.

The project will bring Dominguez worldwide media coverage. Some 10,000 attendees of the builders show in February are expected to tour the place, the National Association of Real Estate Editors will meet there, and HGTV will produce a series on the home.

"In a scene right out of a Judy Garland movie, Carmen will walk out on the national housing stage a virtual unknown and come back a world-class industry celebrity," says Bill Nolan, vice chairman of the task force that selected Dominguez. "Pretty neat, huh?"

Meanwhile, her elegant masterpiece at the Street of Dreams showcase in Lake County's ultra-riche Bella Collina -- a $6.5 million, 12,684-square-foot mansion that includes graceful columns and archways, a double staircase, a revolving bed, a tiered spa and waterfalls -- has helped draw an estimated 45,000 visitors during the past month and a half.

You might expect her ego to have mushroomed exponentially.

Instead, Dominguez laughs at her unlikely journey.

"Life is a joke," she says, offering a snapshot of herself with a Carmen Miranda-like basket of fruit on her head. "It is a great joke. The fact that I am where I am -- I have to laugh at it. I think people take themselves too seriously."

Now 57, Dominguez is speeding up at an age when a lot of people are slowing down. She'll get up at 4 or 4:30 in the morning, arrive at work in her downtown office a half-hour later, and plow full-speed-ahead for the next 11 or 12 hours.

Her job as a custom-home builder is a bit like being a movie director, she says. There's no hammering or drawing floor plans; instead, she must coordinate the entire project, hiring the talent, if you will, and making sure they execute the script faithfully. She also has to keep tabs on the budget.

On a recent workday at The New American Home, she lavishes praise on the landscaper and electricians. She chats with the painters in Spanish. She throws her arm around the interior decorator and beams.

"Ron, this is phenomenal. Just awesome. And this -- " she says, hoisting a bright red, shag-carpet-covered cube that doubles as a chair or foot rest, "come on! I am freaking out at how beautiful it all looks."

Part of the secret to her success, admirers say, is her charm. Another is making sure people are paid on time -- no small thing in a business known for delays and cost overruns. And when she's trying to finesse an uncooperative subcontractor, daughter Cristina says, she is "shameless."

When Cristina, a former attorney turned interior-decor entrepreneur, was struggling to refurbish retail space in Miami, her mother took over dealing with the contractor, calling him every half-hour when necessary to make sure he got the job done.

"I think she probably drives people so crazy that they just do what she wants so she'll leave them alone already," Cristina says.

It's not that Dominguez raises her voice or stomps her well-heeled feet. She may have a diva name -- but not the attitude.

"There is nothing worse than arrogance," Dominguez says. "One thing I always tell young people is, it's OK not to know something. It's OK to ask for help."

She learned that lesson in contractor school, where, in part because of the language barrier, she not only took every class twice, but she also sought help from the tutoring center for geometry and algebra.

"How old is your child?" the woman at the tutoring center asked.

"No, no," Dominguez replied. "It's for me."

From 'lost' to superachiever

Carmen Garcia grew up in the seaside town of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the granddaughter of a well-to-do doctor and senator. He toted her around to political meetings, public appearances and private negotiations. She learned early the art of the deal.

After high school, she went to college to study business and later wound up working as a part-time office manager for her Cuban-born husband, a physician. But mostly, Carmen Dominguez became busy being a mother.

"She was always the fun mom. She was the kind of mom who, on a whim, would say, 'Let's go to Disney World,' " says eldest daughter Maylen Dominguez Arlen, 33, an undergraduate at Yale before studying film at the University of Southern California. She is now creative director for Homes by Carmen Dominguez and the principal visionary behind The New American Home.

"I would say the No. 1 testament to my mom as a mother and as a boss -- the most incredible thing about her -- is that she is open to new ideas. Even from the time I was 5 years old, if I had a point to make, she listened. I mean, The New American Home was a risk for her -- it's not [the style of house] she normally does . . . I think she's extraordinarily progressive, especially for having been born and raised in a small town in Puerto Rico."

She is also notoriously resilient.

When she and her former husband separated, Dominguez says, it was the lowest point of her life. For one thing, she was -- and is -- devoutly Catholic. For another, there were no villains.

She rarely left her bed for three months. She was, as she describes it now, "lost."

"But one day I suddenly said to myself, 'What is going on here? If something happens, I don't have anything,' " she says. "I realized I needed to do something for myself. I just didn't know what."

It took a while for a plan to emerge, but Dominguez already had experience dealing with contractors and looking at building plans when she had supervised the construction of a new office building for her husband's practice. She had an unusual knack for envisioning the finished product and negotiating a sweet deal.

A friend suggested contractor school, where Dominguez became one of only two women among 70 men. She squeezed in school between mothering duties by taking classes all weekend, every weekend.

"She has always been incredibly optimistic, incredibly energetic," Cristina says. "It exhausts me just watching her. She has moved me in and out of every apartment. And she's like a drill sergeant. I'll be like, omigod, Mom, please -- can we take a break? 'No! Five more boxes! Ten more paintings! Move the bed! Clean the kitchen!' It's insane."

Success by her own standards

One fall day in 1998, Carmen Dominguez met Jim Cooper, a developer, at the Winter Park Farmers Market. Even in matching sweat pants and jacket, she looked elegant. She was bright, classy, warm and quite striking.

"This is the thing about Carmen," Cooper says. "She's like Neiman Marcus and I'm Target."

He asked her to dinner.

They have been living together for eight years now, most recently in a 4,200-square-foot home in Winter Park. Dominguez was the builder. The entire second story is devoted to guest rooms for children and grandchildren.

Cooper, 66, still marvels at her ability to excel in such a male-dominated industry.

"When I first met her, I would say, 'Carmen, how can you put on a dress that most women would wear to the ball and walk around inspecting your sites?' She said, 'I am a lady. I'm going to dress like one.' "

Early in November, on the night of her installation dinner as president of the local Home Builders Association, he introduced her with a kiss and watched, beaming, as she danced to a disco-funk-Latin band with anyone willing, including Orange County Commissioner Mildred Fernandez.

Her parents, who spend part of the year in Winter Park, were there, as were her daughters, a cousin and friends from Puerto Rico, representatives of charities for which Dominguez has donated her time and talents, various politicians and a vast network of friends and admirers.

For some, the spotlight might have been a bit too bright. As the first woman, the first Hispanic, she knows that other women and other Hispanics will pin their hopes on her performance -- and that detractors will judge her more critically.

Carmen Dominguez doesn't much care. She'll do her best, of course, but she has other yardsticks to measure her life.

"What's the worst thing that can happen if I don't do a good job as president?" she says, entirely serious. "People will say, boy, she sucks. Well, so what? I have raised two very good human beings. That, in my book, is success."

Kate Santich can be reached at ksantich@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5503. First photo ran on page F1.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

XETRA:NSU, NYSE:NMGA, NYSE:TGT,