Other stories by J. Caulfield

  • Colorado builder applies for a bank charter

    SOMETIME SOON, THE EXECUTIVE TEAM running Colorado Springs, Colo.–based Classic Homes hopes to buy or start up a bank, through which Classic would expand its mortgage and title businesses.

  • Home-improvement dealer develops communities around its stores.

    MENARDS, THE THIRD-LARGEST HOME improvement retailer in the United States, is more than 75 percent through the build-out of 164 single-family homes in a subdivision it is developing in Yorktown, Ill. The Eau Claire, Wis.–based dealer has received approval for phase two of this development, which...

  • A Brick Wall

    Last year, Paul and Amy Deuble bought land in Shreve, Ohio, on which they intended to have assembled a 2,107-square-foot modular home with a similar-sized basement. Those plans stalled in November when owners of a local bed and breakfast objected to the construction, and a Common Pleas Court judge...

  • Charges Dropped

    The recent dismissal of charges against five Fischer Homes' supervisors accused of allowing illegal immigrants to work on their jobsites leaves unresolved questions about why federal investigators singled out the Crestview Hills, Ky.–based builder—and what other builders' responsibilities are for...

  • Buried Treasure

    In November, the crew at Lennar's Central Park West high-rise development in Irvine, Calif., uncovered the remains of a 30,000-year-old giant ground sloth. The animal would have been 6 feet tall and weighed 3,500 pounds when it roamed the earth during the Ice Age.

  • Fresh Blood

    Every year for the past decade, Marlton, N.J.–based contractor Lipinski Landscape Irrigation has hired 75 to 150 temporary workers from Mexico and Eastern Europe through the Department of Homeland Security's H-2B program, which allows 66,000 foreign workers to enter the United States for up to 10...

  • In the Neighborhood

    CENTEXCORP. IS GOING THROUGH WHAT its CEO, Tim Eller, calls a “transition year” in 2006, in which the Dallas-based builder is moving forward with a flatter operational management structure that Eller believes will be a key element in his company's future growth and profitability.

  • Defect Detente

    THIS SUMMER, 60,000 TEXAS RESIDENTS who purchased houses from KB Home over the past decade will receive notices that warranty disputes with the builder don't need to be settled through binding arbitration.

  • New Start

    Pulte Homes' recent sale of its Mexico operations occurred as the country's housing policies seem to be creating a more-robust mortgage market. “There is significant liquidity there. We're bullish about Mexico,” says Ira Schulman, a principal at Chicago-based investment firm Waltham Street Capital...

  • Second City Windfall

    Last year was the first year that a Chicago-area builder sold more than 2,000 homes.