In Flagler Beach, Florida, I spent my summers as a city lifeguard. It was the kind of job that gave you a front-row seat to everyone passing through. Most of them passed. Angelo stayed.
Anthony 'Angelo' Cinelli showed up in our town in the late '90s, not as some big-shot developer but as the pier's security guard. You'd never guess that he quietly owned half the town — the bank, commercial buildings, prime land near the pier. He didn't brag. He just spent his time watching over the pier and talking with people like me.
Angelo was straightforward. He told stories about how he started in real estate by buying land, placing manufactured homes, and eventually selling a chunk of property to AT&T for their corporate headquarters. He came to Flagler Beach looking for a slower pace after all that. Being a pier security guard gave him the routine he wanted.
During those conversations, he gave me one piece of advice I still hold onto: "Find a job where you get paid with your brain, not your body." That pushed me toward consulting and creative work first. But his stories about real estate — the actual mechanics of buying, improving, and building value — planted something that wouldn't leave.
That seed grew into the work I do now. Not through some grand plan announced on a pier, but through doing it. Through buying buildings in towns that got passed over. Through staying in it for the long haul instead of chasing quick returns. Through treating the places I invest in as worth building, not worth extracting from.
That's the tribute that matters. Not nostalgia or gratitude framed as a closing line. It's the actual practice — buying overlooked buildings in overlooked towns, putting them in good order, and leaving them better than I found them. That's what I learned from watching Angelo work.
← All writing