How Wendell Restoration Hempstead Was Born in Hempstead
Some stories start with a business plan and a bank loan. Ours started with a flooded basement on Carolina Avenue and a homeowner who had already been burned once by this industry.
That homeowner was a neighbor of Blake Sorensen’s. A pipe had let go while she was at work, and by the time she got home, the finished basement where her kids watched movies was standing in eight inches of water. She called the first restoration company that popped up. They showed up, took one look, and gave her a number that made no sense for the scope of the job. She didn’t know any better. She paid it. They tore out the wet drywall, set a couple fans, and left. Three weeks later, the musty smell came back and the baseboards were warping. They didn’t return her calls.
Blake spent that weekend helping her rip out what should have been ripped out the first time. He saw the gaps up close: no moisture readings, no written scope, no follow-up, no accountability. And he knew Hempstead deserved better than that. Wendell Restoration Hempstead exists because that moment demanded a local answer to a simple question: what if a restoration company actually treated a neighbor’s home like a neighbor would?
Blake Sorensen’s Personal Connection to the Damage Restoration Trade
Blake Sorensen didn’t grow up dreaming about drywall. He grew up in a house where things got fixed on Saturday mornings, where a problem was something you solved with your hands before it became someone else’s emergency. The first time he truly understood what water does to a structure, he was in his early twenties, standing in a crawlspace with a flashlight and a moisture meter, watching a reading climb behind a wall that looked completely fine from the living room. The homeowner stood at the access door, arms crossed, saying it couldn’t be that bad because it looked dry. It wasn’t dry. It was hiding.
That’s the moment that hooked him. Damage restoration is not about tearing things out. It’s about finding what’s hiding before it gets worse. It’s about the smell of wet drywall at 2 a.m., the hollow sound of a baseboard that’s been soaking longer than anyone realized, the relief in a homeowner’s voice when someone finally says the words that make sense: here’s what happened, here’s what we do about it, here’s what it costs, and we wrote it down for you.
What gets him out of bed is the same thing every day: a neighbor standing in a wet living room, not knowing what happens next, and getting to be the person who makes the unknown known. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be building furniture, which he says is the same instinct with less urgency and more sawdust. The work has given him over ten years of these moments, and he carries every one of them into the next house.
Meet Blake Sorensen – The Person Behind Every Job
Blake Sorensen is the Owner & Founder of Wendell Restoration Hempstead. He’s spent more than ten years in the damage restoration trade, and he leads with something most people in this industry never learned to prioritize: a phone that answers, a price in writing, and a promise that means something.
He’s not a franchise technician running through a script. He’s a Long Islander who knows the difference between a basement in Baldwin that floods from groundwater and a basement in North Bellmore that floods because the grading was never right. He has worked on all of it, and he has stayed up late thinking about the jobs that didn’t go the way they should have.
Outside the work, Blake is a woodworker when the schedule allows, and he is unreasonably particular about how a miter joint lines up. That exacting streak is not a hobby. It’s a worldview. Blake’s commitment is simple: every home we work on is treated like it belongs to someone we’ll see at the grocery store, because in Hempstead, it probably does.
Our Promise to Hempstead Homeowners
Every Wendell Restoration Hempstead job works to one standard, and it comes from the Relay Home Co. family: total visibility. You book in a tap. You get a live arrival time you can track. You get photos of the work before and after. You get a written price before anything starts. You get a digital invoice you can pay from the link we text you. No phone tag, no four-hour window, no price that changes at the door.
We hold to those specifics because we’ve seen what happens when restoration work goes dark: the homeowner calls, leaves a message, waits. That’s not how we work. Every job gets documented, every step gets communicated, and every homeowner gets the same thing Blake wanted for that neighbor on Carolina Avenue: to know, at every point, what is happening in their own home.
Our Credentials
Here’s what you should know before you invite us into your home:
- State-licensed and insured & bonded. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. Insurance protects you and it protects the work.
- Local experience. We have seen how water, fire, and storm damage actually behaves on Long Island: the humidity, the older foundations, the finished basements that flood after a nor’easter. That local knowledge changes how we scope a job.
- Strong local reputation. We’re rooted in Hempstead and the surrounding towns, and we’ve earned trust the slow way: by showing up on time, doing what we said, and standing behind the work.
- Part of the Relay Home Co. family. That means every job carries The Relay Visibility Guarantee: a live arrival time, photo updates, and a written price before we start.
Why do these matter to a homeowner? Because when someone is cutting into your walls or setting drying equipment in your living room, you need to know they’re accountable to a standard, not just to their own schedule. The license means the work is covered. The insurance means you’re covered. The guarantee means the process is visible. None of those are optional in this trade.
Rooted in Hempstead
We’re not a company that pretends to be from every town. Wendell Restoration Hempstead is an independent local business that worked to earn the right to carry The Relay Visibility Guarantee through the Wendell name. We know the streets in Baldwin where the sump pumps run all spring. We know the Seaford and Massapequa basements that take on water during a heavy coastal storm. We know what a Hempstead homeowner is dealing with, because we’re right here, living it too.
Written by Blake Sorensen, Owner & Founder at Wendell Restoration Hempstead, serving Hempstead and the surrounding communities. Call (516) 559-6972 for help with water, fire, or storm damage.