Pioneer homebuilder Harry Elliott II dies
Oct. 19, 2009
Harry Cecil Elliott II, founder of H.C. Elliott, Inc., has died in Santa Barbara. He was 96.
The company Elliott founded is now a fourth-generation, privately held builder-developer, consistently listed as one of the top 100 homebuilders in the nation. The Elliott companies have built more than 35,000 homes throughout California, Arizona and Texas, as well as thousands of apartments and millions of square feet of industrial, commercial and office buildings.
Elliott was a true pioneer builder inspiring his employees, contractors and peers. Well recognized for his decades of leadership within the local and state home building associations, Elliott was named the local Builder of the Year and in 1987 was inducted into the California Homebuilding Foundation Hall of Fame.
When Elliott was born in 1913, the family was living in a home built by his father. It was natural for him to continue building in his father’s footsteps. During World War II, Elliott, affectionately known as H.C., worked in the Navy shipyards at Port Orchard, Wash., during the day. Each evening and weekend he began building finely crafted homes from the back of his pickup truck with his own skill saw and hammer in hand.
In 1946, Elliott packed up his wife and four children into the car and a 15-foot travel trailer in which they lived until they found “a good spot to build and settle” in Southern California.
A tenacious businessman, Elliott was infamous for his dogged determination, passion and single-mindedness of purpose. He built his first subdivision in 1950, and built more than 2,000 homes throughout the region during that decade. His quest for choice and reasonably priced land brought them to Northern California in the early 1960s. In the 1970s, the company expanded to Arizona.
He vehemently rejected the notion of ever taking his company public; building the successful private company from his own resources without seeking outside financing support. Elliott broadened his building legacy, developing master planned communities as large as 3,000 acres, mobile home parks, apartment complexes, two million square feet of non-residential, industrial, retail and office space, and then expanded into banking, mortgage financing and insurance companies, all driven from the focused core business of homebuilding.
Always on the move, Elliott enjoyed piloting small aircraft, spending time with his wife, family and grandchildren, yet managed to continue building custom homes well into his retirement years and actively served as chairman of the board for Elliott Homes, Inc. He spent the past eight years with his family in Santa Barbara.
Elliott's homebuilding legacy lives on as his son, Harry C. Elliott III, now leads one of the largest privately held family building businesses in the nation, with his grandchildren actively involved as well.
Elliott Homes continues the tradition of quality building and developing as a highly diversified private builder developer headquartered in the middle of their 3,000 acre master planned communities, Broadstone and Empire Ranch. in Folsom, one of the many Elliott Homes’ award-winning master planned communities.
