Glen Head's Golden Eye marks 20 years of ‘building dreams’

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What was once a nondescript two-story home on The Boulevard has been transformed. Its exterior, now a palette of natural hues and alluring textures is bolstered by cream-colored cement walls, capped off by a silver tin roof.
Through the front door the fresh, open floor plan gives way to floor-to-ceiling windows that reveal the waterfront, making it seem as if the sands of nearby Sea Cliff Beach are a part of the newly renovated home.
Glen Head-based construction company Golden Eye has been renovating the home since early February and, much like its two-decade-long legacy of delivering quality home improvements, the soon-to-be finished product is something out of a dream.
“It’s been amazing to work with them,” said Candice Loshen, who is moving into the Sea Cliff site from Sands Point this summer. “They had my vision and were just as excited as I was and were diligent about the project.”
Golden Eye was founded in 1998 by third generation master carpenter Michael Emmert, of Glen Head. For the past 20 years, he and his team of certified carpenters have done a range of projects across the North Shore. From full-fledge revamps to smaller, custom jobs, Emmert says, “You name it we’ve built it.”

“Not only do we get to build these beautiful homes, but we get to drive by them every day and say hello to our clients and ask them how they’re doing, and how they’re enjoying it,” he added. “It’s a lot of fun.”
About 70 percent of the company’s jobs are contracted in Sea Cliff and Glen Head, which is a point of pride for Emmert, who is a graduate of North Shore High School and the coach of the varsity wrestling team. “There’s nothing better than being able to work in your own community,” he said.
The addition of Golden Eye’s project manager, Rob Aquilina, of Levittown, has enabled the company to run a more efficient business system, Emmert said. “A lot of contractors know how to build stuff, but running a company is not really their forte.”
Each project is headed by a lead carpenter who works one-on-one with a client through every step of the process. If a client requests a change or desires additional work on the site, they will know the new “substantial completion date” from the moment they sign the change order.
“We’re not just an eight to four job,” Aquilina said. “We have good relationships with our customers and we talk to them even when the job is done to make sure everyone is happy.”
Another defining aspect of Golden Eye is its membership with the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, an organization of high-quality professionals committed to integrity, high standards, education, ethics and market recognition.
“We put a lot of time and effort into educating not only ourselves, but our employees [to make sure] the job is going to turn out great,” Emmert said. “That’s what we do for a living. We build dreams on these beautiful houses.”
And it is time well-spent.
At Loshen’s home, her vision of a modern beach townhouse with a 1970s influence comes alive through meticulous details. With the help of Sea Cliff-based architect James Carballal, the contractors at Golden Eye worked “every day through every weather” to create the home of Loshen’s dreams.
Throughout the house, lighting fixtures refract light through mesmerizing crushed cubic zirconium. In the downstairs bathroom, a gorgeous motif of turquoise geode tiles gives the appearance of being underwater. The kitchen is a brilliant scheme of bold gray and white. Ovular tiles create a funky pattern in the backsplash while multicolored lights snake throughout the exterior soffits creating a vanity-like allure. The cabinetry in the walk-in closet upstairs was custom built in the company’s woodworking shop in Glen Cove and rounding out the space in the corner of the living room is a sleek one-person elevator.
In the coming weeks, Golden Eye will launch a separate division of the company through Marvin Inc., the second largest window and door company in the world. The concept of providing high-end products and assured customer satisfaction for clients is paramount.
“We love our clients, and the fact that they love us back is the important thing,” Emmert said. “I think if we can make our clients happier when we leave from when we showed up, then we did a good job.”