In “Your Turn,” Reveler Development founder Tom Watson tells his tale in a series of short vignettes.
Reveler Development founder Tom Watson has authored a memoir about the early, difficult and dirty — some might add crazy — days of renovating Portland apartment buildings in the 1990s, when much of the city was more gritty than pretty.
In his debut book, "Your Turn," Watson shares the humor in the calamitous. He tells his tale in a series of short vignettes, with chapters entitled: "Rats and Worms," "Stink Pipe Gladiators," "Nobody Move and Nobody Gets Hurt" and "Barf Bag."
Watson started his company out of the back of his pickup truck and lived in the unfinished buildings he was rehabbing, many of which were in such poor condition that they needed to be gutted.
Soldiering on through it all, Watson and his "Radio Crew" went on to launch Reveler on a path to eventually develop over 2,000 apartments throughout Maine and North Carolina.
Watson was honored as a Mainebiz Business Leader of the Year in
2023.
Serious message
The book also touches on Watson’s serious health crises, involving multiple strokes, and — most importantly — his recovery. He writes about it with unfailing positivity and with a mission to bring discussion about mental health out of the shadows.
At a
Mainebiz CEO forum in 2023, Watson urged attendees who were struggling with mental health to seek help.
“Many people came up to me afterwards, and thanked me, saying, 'No one in business talks about mental health, and we need to,'" he recalls in his book.
Motivation
Mainebiz asked Watson what motivated him to write "Your Turn."
"Five or six years ago, as the founder at Reveler Development, I hired a finance person,” Watson explained. "He reviewed our financial performance and how we got to where we were, in no real linear progression. By the end of my career, I had become more involved in real estate finance. And he was baffled. How was I both this finance person and also someone who worked in basements and on roofs?
“He told me, ‘No one has lived this life. You need to write a book.’”
Later, in the aftermath of a brain injury, Watson said he came to see the book project as an opportunity to shed light on post-traumatic growth.
"These days I’m retired, and I wanted to stay creative" he added. "There is a lot of creativity in real estate, and I majored in creative writing in my undergraduate degree at Stanford University. The book gave me an opportunity to be creative alongside my daughter Rose, who did the illustrations.”
Writing the book took eight months, Watson recalled, along with another year for editing, design and final polishing; two years in total.
Watson credits his editor, Maine writer Susan Conley, for turning his “mishmash” into a 353-page narrative.
He adds that the volume is the first in a planned trilogy, with the next book scheduled to be published in summer 2027.
Reveler today
Today, Reveler is led by John Laliberte, president and CEO, and Michael Barton, vice president of development.
The company has built numerous multifamily and mixed-use projects in greater Portland, including
the Levee and
the Eddy in Biddeford, and
the Armature in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood.
Reveler is currently building a 201-unit affordable apartment building at
89 Elm St. in Portland and a 200-unit luxury apartment complex in Westbrook, named
the Ledger.
