Steven Jaurigui, owner of Baypointe Landscape, has found a wide variety of uses for his compact machinery on many of the projects the company has been involved in. Baypointe Landscape recently purchased a Vermeer S600. “This is a great machine,” said Steven. “I can’t say enough about the S600. It is very versatile and easy to handle. It has a 25 horsepower diesel engine that has loads of power and it can be used in a wide variety of applications.” Jaurigui also liked the fact that the S600 is an all in one piece of machinery. “The S600 is like a mini-tractor. It has a bucket, trencher, forks, roto-tiller and a land-leveler. It’s small and able to fit into tight compact areas where a traditional size skid steer couldn’t fit into.”

The S600 has proven to be a real asset for the company because many of the projects Baypointe Landscape is involved in consists of work in residential areas where the access to a site and the work areas themselves are very limited. A perfect example of this is a current project Baypointe Landscaping is working on. The company is installing a new mainline for an irrigation system at a private residence. Because the old plumbing was all galvanized steel and had rusted out, the company is replacing it with one inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe. “Due to certain logistics on the project, we’ve had to reroute the waterline around existing structures,” said Steven. The job entails digging a trench approximately 150 feet long. “In the past a job like this would have taken all day to complete with the use of regular manpower,” Steven explained. “With the S600 we were able to dig the trench in a little over an hour.”

Baypointe Landscape is also currently working on a project filing in an existing swimming pool and landscaping a private residence. The S600 is proving to be a great saver of time and labor on this project as well. “We had to break up the bottom of the pool before filing it in,” said Steven. “The S600 has been a big help in filling and compacting the dirt we’ve put in the former pool site. We are also using it to roto-till the yard before we landscape it and to trench for a new irrigation system as well.”

Before starting his company Steven Jaurigui worked in the landscaping industry for a number of years. Steven started Baypointe Landscape in 1995. A year later he bought out a competitor. Since that time Jaurigui has expanded and built his company through slow growth and continuous progress. “We are a relatively small enterprise,” said Steven. With the steady work and new construction that California has seen over the past eight to ten years, frequently new companies can grow by leaps and bounds and quickly find themselves over extended. The result is generally a case of the contractor having to constantly juggle projects with quality and workmanship suffering. This hasn’t been the case with Baypointe Landscape. “I never wanted to take on more projects than I feel we could adequately handle or grow too large too quickly,” said Steven. Located in Belmont, the company services the peninsula region of San Mateo County and the immediate outlying area. “We have worked in other areas, but we’ve been fortunate that there have been enough projects locally to keep us busy here,” said Steven. “I don’t want to take on a project that I can’t stay on top of due to the geographical distance. When you get into those types of situations the quality of work generally suffers.”

Baypointe Landscape is a full service company and specializes in rock retainers. In addition to lawn installation and general landscaping, the company is also very experienced in the installation of irrigation systems, landscape lighting, flagstone and interlocking pavers for driveways and walkways. Baypointe Landscape concentrates on residential property projects and is currently handling work for a number of landscape management companies as well. Among the company’s equipment inventory they own in addition to the Vermeer S600, is a Bobcat 743, a Ford S600, a Ford F350 and a Ford F 250, as well as a wide assortment of accessories.

Baypointe continues to grow, but balancing that growth with the work available is a challenge for the company. “It’s one of those things of keeping up with the work during the peak periods and not trying to take on more projects than we can accomplish with quality that can prove to be a challenge,” said Steven. “Punctuality is a very big issue with me. Being able to start a project for a client on time and see it through to the end is something that I stress in my business relationships. If you take on more work than you are actually capable of doing, you find that you have to make excuses to the client for not starting or completing a project on schedule. That is not what Baypointe Landscaping is about. We strive to do a project when we say we will and give the client quality workmanship. If you stretch yourself too thin you find that you can’t complete a project on schedule and that the quality will suffer. I won’t allow that to happen.”

Keeping up with a wide variety of projects and the challenges they present is just one of the aspects that Steven enjoys about his work. “Every job is different and each one has its own unique challenges. I enjoy working with the customer to develop a landscape plan that they will be happy with. Taking an undeveloped area and then turning it into something beautiful is very satisfying. When we finish a project and see the customer smile and know they are happy with the end result, that gives me a great deal of satisfaction knowing that we have completed the job successfully.” Cc