Buying a home probably ranks third in life’s big commitments, just after getting married and having kids. The good news is that it’s also right up there with the other two in adding to your quality of life.
But because it is such an important step, it makes only makes sense to vet the company you’re getting involved with.
Model 4003C is one of the new homes at Stepping Stone in Parker, Colorado.
So in that spirit, here’s a bit of history about Shea Homes, a family-owned business that’s been around since 1881. (And as you’re comparison shopping, keep that little tidbit in mind—the long history itself shows a commitment to quality and lasting customer satisfaction.)
Shea Homes actually began as John Francis Shea’s one-man plumbing shop in Portland, Oregon. By 1926, the company (now J.F. Shea Company, Inc.) took on major public water supply construction works—like the Portland Seawall and pipelines in the San Francisco Bay. Over the next several decades, Shea became a key player in renowned civil construction projects like the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, and San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.
Beginning in 1968, Shea entered the world of homebuilding.
In 1968, the company turned its talents to homebuilding. During the 1970s, Shea built homes in Northern and Southern California and Nevada, and began developing apartments, commercial and retail centers, too. Shea began building in Colorado in 1996, and shortly thereafter acquired the 22,000-acre, prize property dubbed Highlands Ranch. The undeveloped land would provide Shea with 16,000 home sites to build on in the decades to follow.
Today, Shea Homes—the primary division of the J.F. Shea company—is America’s largest privately owned new homebuilder. Headquartered in Walnut, California, the company develops new home communities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Washington. Shea Homes was named America’s Best Builder in 2005 by Builder Magazine, 2007 Builder of the Year by Professional Builder, and was the 2011 JD Power and Associates Customer Service Champion.
This model is 5003C, one of the many new homes at Stepping Stone in Parker, Colorado.
It’s four generations later, and Shea family members are just as committed to hard work and pride in a job well done as John Shea was more than a century ago. That’s a background today’s homebuyers can feel good about.
