Residents honored for hard work at home

Brookfield Trustee Gary Lees, right, talks with Beautification Award winners, from left, Martin Taub, Brandon Pavone and Dave Ashman.

Brandon Pavone’s property at 6884 Merwin Chase Road is an “ongoing process,” he said.
He bought the property in 2010, and built a Cape Cod-style home with a detached garage and an enclosed breezeway connecting it to the house in 2013.
“I wanted it to stand out, color wise,” Pavone said. “I used very deep blue with white trim. It kind of pops.”
He has dreams of doing much more – re-sodding the front yard, adding landscaping to the front and back yards, building a bigger garage – but what he has done thus far was good enough to earn the 2019 residential front yard award from the Brookfield Township Beautification Committee.
Also honored on Dec. 2 were:
2017 commercial: Taub’s Lawn Care, 6833 Warren Sharon Road.
2017 residential front yard: Mike Saadeh, 874 S. Albright McKay Road.
2017 residential full yard: Dave and Darlene Ashman, 5941 Everett East Road.
2019 commercial: Mohney’s Heating and Cooling, 1240 Standard Ave.
2019 residential full yard: Jennie and James Slabe, 410 Brookfield Ave.
“The idea of this whole thing, and I’ve said this a number of times since I’ve been a trustee, is to take pride in your community, take pride in yourself and maybe your neighbor will also follow suit,” said Trustee Gary Lees.
The 2017 awards were late, and no awards were made for 2018 because of an issue with getting the award plaques made, Lees said.
“Our vendor that we normally had for a number of years, they really, they jacked the price up quite a bit,” he said, noting that the new vendor is Chuck Kish of Signwork, Masury.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” Pavone said of the award. “I didn’t even know our township offered anything like this.”
The Ashmans were honored for buying a foreclosed property at South Albright McKay and Everett East roads and turning it into a “mini farm,” as Dave Ashman described it, with a barn, a couple of smaller buildings, a landscaped tree line and a pond. The Ashmans love to be outside, gardening and working in the yard, he said.
“We both, my wife especially, is just meticulous with her cleanliness in the yard,” Ashman said. “I give her all the credit. I’m just a laborer.”
Martin Taub, owner of Taub’s Lawn Care, gave the credit for his business’s award to his employees.
“My guys take pride in what they do, even though I only got three employees, now,” said Taub, who has downsized the business and is contemplating retirement.
“It’s my building, my house is in on this,” said Taub, who created the company in 2001. “My guys, they take care of my property. I cut the grass when I can, or usually they cut it. They take care of the shrubbery. They take care of the weeding. All the years, I’ve had good employees.”
Lees put out the call for new members of the beautification committee and the Brookfield Township Historical Commission, which oversees the historical district in Brookfield Center. Contact Lees through the township office, 330-448-4500, if interested.