Almost six decades ago, one of Arizona’s first licensed contractors, J.W. Hancock, founded a home building business with his wife, Maggi. J.W. Hancock Enterprises specialized in semi-custom homes, opposed to tract homes common in the area in the 1960s.
Courtesy Camelot Homes
J.W. Hancock, who co-founded one of Arizona's oldest family-owned home-building firms with his wife Maggi, stands in front of his truck.
The couple renamed their firm after their son Mark saw the 1967 musical Camelot, in which a character states, “in short, there’s simply not a more congenial spot for happily ever aftering than here in Camelot.” Mark remembered the line and went home to ask his mom if they could call the company Camelot.
She agreed and the rest is company history. Camelot Homes, one of the oldest family-owned builders in Arizona, was recently recognized for its White Horse community in this year’s Gold Nugget awards.
The project started post-Recession with a land opportunity the company couldn’t turn down. It was state land in north Scottsdale, adjacent to the master plan DC Ranch. To acquire the land, Camelot had to go through an auction and rezoning process. Although there was a strong neighborhood opposition to developing it, Camelot had a good history and reputation in the area so they were able to work through neighbors’ initial challenges, says Julie Hancock, Mark’s wife and co-owner of the company.
Family-Owned and Operated
After J.W. and Maggi Hancock retired in the late 1970s, son Mark took over Camelot Homes with his wife, Julie, and the company’s second husband-wife team has been running Camelot ever since. While the husband handles business affairs and the wife oversees design at many family-owned building firms, the opposite is true at Camelot. Julie handles the legal, finance, and operations end and Mark puts his artistic skills to work on the designer end.
The company works in many cities in the Phoenix metropolitan area, including Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Peoria, Tempe, and Scottsdale. Specializing in luxury, high-end homes, the company targets a niche of buyers seeking out architectural sophistication.
“We really hone in on the architecture and have always utilized top-notch architects working on our products,” says Julie. “We really do live by the motto that we want our architecture to stand the test of time. I think you could go through our neighborhoods throughout the Valley, even when we built back in the 60s and 70s, and see that they stood apart for their timeframe and still look good today.”
In addition to semi-custom, the builder has constructed everything from condominiums to patio homes to single-family to full-on custom. Whether the target market is a first-time buyer or empty-nester looking to downsize, Camelot has developed homes for all different ages and price points, but they all share the commonality of wanting sophisticated architecture.
Right now, the company has four active communities with two more about to open in October. The builder has always averaged between three and seven communities, depending on the market’s conditions.
Camelot has been through many up and down cycles with the market. Julie says one of the key factors why the company has survived for so long is because of their ability to quickly adapt to market changes. They also have been cautious in their land acquisition strategy and take time to reflect on how the company performed in past downturns.
“We are a little more ear to the ground and not just looking at doing certain numbers,” she says. “We won’t grow for growth's sake. We just really keep an eye on the market.”
Another aspect that has flexed up and down with the market is the company’s overall size. Right now, Camelot has about 44 employees, but has had as many as 140 employees and as few as 20 employees.
Mark and Julie’s three children are now adults and active within the business. Their daughter works on the custom and remodeling end of the company. One son is in sales and manages the sales team, while the other oversees customer service. All three are being primed to take over the reins when the couple retires.
“We are really focused, like all family businesses need to be, on the succession planning,” says Julie. “Outside consultants are coming in and working with each of our children and with Mark and I to help us prepare them for the transition when we do decide to retire.”
Although Mark usually makes the design decisions, Julie had the reins on the White Horse project, including the name. Julie has been an equestrian her whole life and has always had a white horse. When it came time to the name the community, she wanted something different and settled with White Horse. Julie had seen some projects of archiect Bob White’s when he worked with Scheurer Architects and wanted to commission him to do the designs for the community, but White wasn’t interested in working with a production builder.
“Mark was ready to give up on him and go another direction and I said ‘I’m going to make this happen,’” says Julie. “I literally texted him day and night, joked with him ‘You’re never going to get rid of me, so you might as well do this project.””
It was an expensive endeavor on Camelot’s part, but Julie was committed to making the community “a pinnacle of Camelot’s 45+ years’ experience building homes.”
The team envisioned these homes to be based on the concept of rural outbuildings that were connected to one another, while also mitigating traffic from a nearby busy road. So they turned the homes inside out. “We took this half acre lot and basically built the house over the whole lot as opposed to having it in the front with a backyard,” says Julie. “You have a front courtyard, a side courtyard, backyard spaces and it kept the living areas inside without the traffic sounds.”
Julie was a strong proponent of the farmhouse style because it seemed fresh and fitting for the area. The team incorporated contemporary and modern styles into the homes as well. After designs and construction, Mark and Julie entered the project into the Gold Nugget awards. They attend PCBC every year and get inspired by other people’s work, but this year White Horse was recognized for three separate awards, Home of the Year, Best Single-Family Detached Home, and Best Indoor/Outdoor Lifestyle for a Home.
Mark Boisclair
“We were just thrilled when we got the two Gold Nugget awards,” says Julie. “We were thinking we were done and getting ready to go.”
Then, the announcer started talking about the Home of the Year. Julie said she was just half listening and her ears perked up when he said Scottsdale community. Then, he called out their project. “It was such a thrill,” she continued. “We were blown away and felt really honored and privileged to be in that kind of company because there was so much great architecture done this year.”
More than half of the 50-lot community has sold since its grand opening in February and continues to sell for Camelot today.
View the full list of Gold Nugget winners across all the categories here.
