Outdoor Living Pave Pros

Initially all seemed fine; $1500.00 paid upfront for deposit on job.  After one day on the job Lincoln Grant (if that's his real name)asked for the balance of the work to pay for materials to finish.  Gave him a check for $1790.00.  Told him how we felt about paying for a job before it was completed but he ensured us that he would finish - he was trustworthy!!!!  Lincoln charged $1500.00 for landscape lighting purchased from Home Depot for about $150.00.  The lighting was insufficient and cheap and timers and transformer were left lying in my flower bed. He told me the electric does not work outside!  I plugged my hairdryer into both electrical outlets and it worked just fine.   He promises to return to fix this mess but never returns.  Everyday he has a different excuse as to why he doesn't show up.  He did pavers around my flower beds that look nice but overall the experience of working with this group is just not worth the effort.  Any contractor who asks for money before a job is completed is a scam artist!    I wish I had read the reviews on this site prior to hiring him.  This group is just not ethical and not worth the time and trouble to use them.

The worst experience I have ever had with a contractor/service.  
I called the references they provided and went to one job site to checkout their work.  Everything seemed in order.
These guys, Lincoln Roy Grant and Allan Edward Zetko, Jr have been in business together for several years.  After they abandoned my incomplete project the first week of December, I could not track them down until mid February when they reported to me that they had dissolved their business and had no money to complete my project.  
The detailed descriptions of the other reviewers are nearly exactly how this company operated on my job.  They were borrowing my tools to do work and their workers were often clueless as to what they were doing.  I know this, because the workers would say, I've never done this before or this is my first time installing pavers.  In the beginning of the project I had to intervene on several occasions when workers were actually cutting down plants in a haphazard way that showed they did not know what they were doing.  I lost three 15+ foot evergreen trees, 2 mature azalea bushes (woman cut them down to the ground-didn't know they were azaleas)  12 year old japanese maple reduced from 5 foot branch spread to 14 inches.
They opened an account with a local dumpster company using my address and another woman's name.  They did not pay for the dumpster.  The dumpster company tracked me down and told me they were placing a lien on my house for non payment on the account. I had to pay for the dumpster directly.
Lincoln Grant took pavers without my permission, that I had paid for directly to the distributor, and used them in 3 home shows in Louisville.  He never returned them and as a result I had to purchase additional materials for my project.
After talking to several people in my area, I identified multiple families in Oldham County and Jefferson County Kentucky who have had similar and significant issues with this group.
I have also found that they do business under multiple names:
OutdoorLivingScapes.com, Outdoor Living Pave Pros, Pave Pros, PaveMasters, Nate's Landscaping
Detective Rittenhouse with the Oldham County Police (502) 222-1300 is working an active case on these two guys.

This was a horrible experience - one of the worst I've ever had with a contractor.  I would never recommend Outdoor Living Pave Pros LLC, Lincoln Grant or Allen Zetko, though they had come recommended to me by a trusted handyman/contractor (who now deeply regrets his advise).  i had interviewed 2 other companies, but these guys did a hard sell.  It was low season for them and they offered me good pricing and an assurance to do the job promptly.    After paying them $3,000 up front, it took no time for them to come back to me for more money to buy materials, to get concrete, to pay workers, with very little work being accomplished.  It was always something else - rental of equipment, replacing a saw blade.  When I was asked for gas money I knew I was in trouble.   Promises to show up were broken time and time again.   After breaking apart existing concrete, my front sidewalk was left in rubble for weeks without the courtesy of an explanation or apology.  Truly this experience was a nightmare.  Just to get the job done, I ended up negotiating and paying the concrete delivery and pavers directly to the suppliers because Outdoor Living Pave Pros didn't have the funds to cover my supplies, though I had foolishly paid them $7,000 of an $8,000 project by that time.  My flagstone patio (for which I had plenty of really attractive Cherokee steppers)  should have been flagstones side by side, but ended up being a poured concrete patio with stones randomly placed in it.  I really don't think they knew what they were doing with poured concrete and flagstones.  What they may know is pavers.  
But what they DON'T know is how to run a business.  This was an ORDEAL - a painful, unfair, undeserved, unprofessional disaster.  I'm a real estate agent, and I wanted them to succeed.  I really wanted to be able to refer these guys to my clients. I could've brought them loads of business.  Instead, I was lied to time and again and ultimately got caught in the middle of a "new partnership" as it imploded.  Believe me, its not something you want to experience or witness.  Instead of fulfilling their commitments to me, these guys put me through the ringer to get the job done.  In the end, after months, they showed up and finished the job, not to my satisfaction, but it was done.  And I was done.  Lesson learned.

12/22 ?
Today Allen came after 1pm and when I asked him why he didn?t come in the
morning like he said, he replied that the ground was frozen.  (However, there was leveled sand on the lower
patio that was ready for block if the block had been here.)  Allen told me that the front walkway would be
completely done today, including the border pavers and retaining plastic.  He said the back walkway by the garage would
be completely done today including the retaining plastic.  He said the patio would be completed today,
the half-circles cut and the columns begun. 
He said he would call me out when they were ready to do the columns so
that I could confirm their location.  He
said that they might get some of the ramped walkway laid today as well.  He said that all the hardscape will be done
by tomorrow, including the seating walls and firepit. 

In
actuality, Allen left and we never heard from him the rest of the day.  He did not answer his phone and his mailbox
is full.  I tried several times. There
were 4 guys left. James used the bobcat to deliver sand to various parts of the
ramped walkway, used the compactor and brought dirt over to the front walkway
area and hand-shoveled dirt in the area between the house and the walkway to
improve the drainage.   The other guys
did some distribution of sand and used the compactor on the ramped sidewalk and
installed pavers on the patio.  They sat
in the truck or stood around most of the day. 
After I talked to James because I was upset that he was the only one
working, and after I had called Lincoln, the guys did actually install some
more pavers on the patio.  If they did 2 hours?
worth of work today it would be a surprise.
_________________________________________________________
The above saga - which is only part of the story - is from the notes I made while this nightmare was going on.  I don't think I'd have enough room on this site to include it all in detail so I'll summarize:

Allen lied about the lights - installed about $200 worth of plastic incandescent lights and tried to pass off a QUOTE for the expensive LED lights as a RECEIPT.   We weren't concerned about how long the job was taking until Allen and Lincoln expected us to meet their payroll every week.  Then we noticed that the workers didn't do much work a lot of the time, came late in the day so not much work could be done if they had wanted to, did sloppy work (I have pictures), deliberately hid defective work, and kept begging us and yelling at us to give them more money!  We practically begged them to just get the job done - spend a few good days of work, and then once the job was done right, we would happily pay them and bid them goodbye! 

Just prior to the Louisville home show in January, Lincoln told us in his nicest voice that he will make everything right, that he wouldn't want to lose $500,000 in future jobs because we weren't satisfied, and that he would even put it in writing.  We presented him with a 'punch list' at the home show and he agreed.  He signed it and said he would start Tuesday after the home show.  When Tuesday came, he called us and just said that he planned to get a lawyer to get paid for all the extra work they had done and the plants that they 'gave' us!!  I was in tears after that call.

Some time later, Allen asked to meet w/my husband at a restaurant to discuss finishing the job.  Allen said that he had  split with Lincoln and formed his own company through a lawyer - that LIncoln had kept the name "Outdoor Livingscapes" and that Allen has the name, "Pave Pros."  He wanted Greg to sign a new contract for the remaining work but my husband stood firm, explaining that we already had a contract for that work to  be completed.   My husband left that meeting without any progress towards a resolution.

Then, on a Sunday night at 7pm, I noticed vehicle lights in the driveway!  Allen had come with the bobcat, supplies and workers.  He said he wanted to complete the job to our satisfaction.  We went over the list of things to be done and corrected.  They did work quite a bit for 2 days and completed the majority of the punch list.  Allen promised that he would be back when the weather allowed the ground to be workable, finish the grading, level any uneven pavers, work on the drainage problem and install the polymeric sand.  We agreed to a reduction of about $500 in the final payment because of the lighting 'issue.'  

Allen reminded us about the upcoming February Louisville home show and encouraged us to come by his booth to see his new brochure and new contract.

The next couple of days I discovered that some of the pavers on the walkway were falling outwards and sinking, and the sand under them was washing away.  Also, that in some places, the paver restraint was coming away from the pavers.


When we went to the home show, lo and behold, there is Lincoln in the "Pave Pros" booth!!  Allen was nowhere to be found and there was a new man in the booth - Rick Masters (Lincoln's ex-wife's husband.)  Lincoln's son said that Rick had been the one to actually form the new company, "Pave Pros, LLC" and that Allen is also still involved.  However, they said they can't seem to get ahold of Allen even though Allen was scheduled to present 2 seminars at the home show re:  travertine for pool surrounds.  I talked to Rick about our problems and he indicated that he was going to try to get the company on track. 

While I was talking w/Rick, my husband was talking w/Lincoln who was quite friendly.  Later I learned that my husband had mentioned the paver restraint pulling away from the walkway and that Lincoln had told him the install should have been finished.  He said that the grading should have been brought right up to the sides of the walk - over the paver retraints - and then someone should have tamped down the dirt over the paver restraints, keeping everything locked in permanently.  

On 2/18 I decided to try to fix that, so I brushed away the mulch that had been lightly put on top of the paver restraints, dug and put dirt on top and tamped it down.  After awhile of that, I could see that it would take days of work for me to do that if my back held out. 
The more I worked on it, the angrier I got - after all, we had paid for the job to be done right and it wasn't.   I called Rick and explained that, asking him to come out and look at the situation when he was able, hoping that he would live up to his word and make things right.  He agreed to come today, 2/22, but has neither come nor called. 
_____________________________________________________
2/27/13 - Apparently LIncoln Grant is doing business with Rick Masters as "Pave Masters" - the name that is listed in the Louisville Home Show for this weekend, March 1-3, 2013.  Beware.