Everyone simply calls Salvatore J. Julian -- Sal.
A baby boomer himself, Sal is committed to offering other baby boomers a lifestyle that is invigorating, rewarding and enriching in personal and memorable experiences within the region’s new active adult community. In Sal’s words, he describes the much-anticipated community as “the neighborhood I grew up in.” A native of the Greater Binghamton area, Sal was born and raised in an Italian family on the Northside of Endicott, NY, in a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, where “familia” was the heart-warming description of the neighborhood that never needed defining nor explaining to new neighbors or visitors from across town, surrounding communities or from afar.
His passion for developing Southerly Hills is a lifetime goal. At the ages of three and four, he would spend countless hours with his Legos. His earliest recollections of his construction projects entailed single family homes and detached garages large enough to park his Matchbox cars in. As his construction aptitude and architectural creativity grew, his weekends would be consumed with endless hours of designing an entire development complete with Matchbox car-lined streets, stores and community service facilities. Eventually, his passion to develop grew into creating miniature cities, complete with high rises. To some, he was the envy of his neighborhood because of his ever-growing collection of Legos and Matchboxes – the largest collections in his neighborhood -- to fuel his projects. As Sal matured, he abandoned the basic snap-together building blocks for more sophisticated construction materials – the infamous Erector sets that featured metal girders, pulleys, wires, nuts and bolts. He then progressed into also building and painting model cars.
Sal’s cousins, recognizing his whole-hearted interest in designing and building projects with much of his spare time, they tested his integrity and patience by gifting him with a Cutty Sark boat model consisting of 10,000 plastic pieces. He never abandoned or even waivered on the project, which he admitted was beyond his skills set at the time. In less than two years, he erected the finely detailed model complete with stringed sails for his entire family to admire. However, somewhere in the midst of the years of pursuing his degrees at Broome Community College and the University of Scranton, it set sail to unknown waters and travels.
Sal was never one to sit still. He sought out planned and unplanned happenings on his street, in his neighborhood, and even across and out of town. In fact, his wife, Felicia, was the five-year-old, neighborhood playmate down the street he used to make and bake “mud pies” with in the warm summer sun. Today, Sal claims that those early days of mixing dirt and water with his childhood sweetheart were the beginnings of him understanding today’s art and science of using, pouring, coloring and stamping concrete in home construction and improvement projects of his own and that of his friends.
Sal is not one to rest on his laurels. The entrepreneur and accountant attributes his passion to develop Southerly Hills to his family that was comprised of a very close-knit community where socializing, engagement and happenings were just a simple and expected part of life. Though his family over the years has dwindled, the changes or passings have not had a negative impact on his outlook on life. Rather, it’s been just the opposite.
Sal’s family has grown to encompass more and more friends, activities and community involvement. Through his accounting practice, just blocks from where he grew up, thriving with a diverse range of clients, to community engagement as a member and board director of local organizations and clubs, including the Broome County Humane Society, the Boys & Girls Club, Union Volunteer Ambulance Squad, and National Association of Accountants -- to teaching courses at Broome Community College and Binghamton University, he is always wanting to learn new things from those around him. “I’m not afraid of personal change.”
Living a vibrant and active life for Sal is all about great people, friendly surroundings like the great outdoors, and quality materials made of metals, woods, stones and concrete. An exceptional project like Southerly Hills, where is greatest loves will come together, is what he's most passionate about today and tomorrow. And, he takes the warmth and welcoming, new community to heart, and why he would prefer to be described as a Lifestyle Builder™ rather than a developer or a general contractor.
