Jon Manafort
Demolition man, wooden boat hobbyist, marina manager, motorcycle maniac.
Unassuming and low-key, Jon Manafort is not a man given to pretension or bravado, despite his Americandream story. His deadpan demeanor—somewhat reminiscent of Nicolas Cage in a Coen brothers film—is endearing, though it belies his appetite for excitement. After conversing with him, it’s easy to see he is a man of both passion and compassion. I met Manafort at dinner after a Boys & Girls Clubs fundraiser in Newport, Rhode Island, last summer. Despite the late hour, he generously invited a gang of us for a nightcap aboard his 106foot Broward Independence II. The crew had gone to bed, but Manafort was perfectly capable of proffering drinks and turning on the tunes. As we got better acquainted, I realized he was perfectly capable—period.
Manafort’s grandfather emigrated from Italy in 1919 and founded the New Britain House Wrecking Company in Connecticut. After World War II, his four sons joined the family business, which was renamed Manafort Brothers, Inc. By the ’60s, the third generation, including Jon, his brother and a cousin, took over and grew the company into a multifaceted heavy-construction and refuse-hauling enterprise. Having begun with around $200,000 in annual sales, Manafort Brothers, Inc. today is an approximately $200 million company.
Eight days after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Manafort Brothers won the contract to assist with the demolition of the remains of the World Trade Center and to collapse several buildings around it. It was six months’ worth of grueling and heartbreaking work, according to Manafort, who recounted the weight of seeing personal items in the rubble and conversing with family members who came to pay their respects. In the early stages, with no hotels open in that part of the city, Manafort docked his first Broward, 92-foot Independence, at Liberty Landing Marina in New Jersey, for him and his workers to live aboard while commuting to the site.
Now retired from the family business, Manafort remains active in his hobbies—racecars, motorcycles and boats—and his new business, ownership of Island Cove Marina in Old Saybrook, on the Connecticut River, where a woodworking shop caters to his interest in restoring old wooden boats. Independence II is too large for the marina,