“Swiss Coffee” is the paint color Brian Savard and Jarrod York of Savard Color get the most requests for in San Francisco. “Frost” comes in a close second.

Savard Color has been Gaetani’s go-to in the painting trades for over thirty years, when our founder, Tony Gaetani, Sr., stopped to chat with Brian while he was sitting in his van outside of a job site. Since that day, Savard has painted thousands of interiors and exteriors on the buildings we manage, and we continue to be impressed by the quality of workmanship this company delivers. Brian chalks it up to the tenure of his team.“We don’t have the challenge of finding skilled labor, as most of our folks have been with us for 25 years,” observed Savard. “That kind of experience is key to getting jobs done quickly and getting them done right.”

That doesn’t mean those jobs are necessarily all easy – being a painting contractor in San Francisco comes with a unique set of challenges, some of which are not so obvious to the casual observer.

Yes, permits are sometimes a hassle, but at least they're a known quantity. Fog, salt spray and sun? Savard has plenty of experience with those elements. Turns out, the biggest challenge with a lot of jobs is, of all things, property lines. Because the houses in San Francisco are often right next to each other, with bay windows jutting out, tiny backyards, hedges, and various backyard cottages getting in the way, oftentimes the only obvious place to put the scaffolding is...in the neighbor's yard. And since that's not always a viable option, it takes quite a bit of ingenuity to get the crew up to where they need to do their work.

Another challenge is understanding the technical details of all the paint products on the market, but this is another place where Savard Color has an edge. “There's a lot of science behind paint, and Brian really knows the right product for the right situation,” says Jerrod. “He’s the master, and I’m lucky to be learning all the ins and outs of this business from him.” Jarrod is Brian’s nephew, and has been doing a deep dive into the arcane chemistry of architectural coatings in preparation for taking over the company when Brian retires in a few years. Jarrod joined the company in 2022 after a successful career in marketing, bringing his business chops with him and relishing the more hands-on aspects of the business. “I was tired of endless meetings where everyone would talk a lot but nothing would get done,” he says. “When we’re finished with a paint job, and it looks great and the client is pleased, the feeling of satisfaction is immediate.”

With a staff of 16 full-time employees, Savard now has two divisions, one offering "full-turn service," meaning that when a rental unit becomes vacant, they send in a cleaning crew, a maintenance team, as well as the painters themselves, so the unit comes out on the other side of their process fully updated and ready to be moved into. The second division focuses on providing high-end painting for some of the finest homes in the Bay Area. Between the two, the company now delivers 40 to 50 projects per month.

That's a whole lot of Swiss Coffee.

Interested in learning more about Savard Color? Drop them a line at brian@savardcolor.com