A tribute to one of American home construction’s most storied individuals – ever – starts like this:

Joseph Hardy of 84 Lumber fame has been described as Homeric, a lumber baron and even chairman of the boards. –

Paul Estridge and Paul Estridge Jr.

Bob Snyder, co-founder with his wife Pat in 1976 of the Burlington, Vermont-area’s Snyder Homes – winner of Builder’s America’s Best Builders in 2006, died Tuesday evening, January 10.

Paul Estridge – current Estridge Homes ceo Clint Mitchell remembers of Indiana’s regional legend – was one whose relentless belief in neighborhoods was fuel and flame in what made the company brand stand out among local, regional, and national rivals.

What made Estridge’s approach unique, Estridge Homes CEO Clint Mitchell said, was his neighborhood-first approach, bringing a focus on parks, amenities and streetscapes to the communities he developed. He knew today’s homebuyers wanted leisure activities close to home.

“He thought a lot about our customer, the lifestyle that someone wants to live in their home, the importance of it,” Mitchell said. – Indy Star

A throughline – from work to life and back again – comes through in the way Paul Estridge’s younger sister, Sherry McNutt, expresses his nature, DNA, and behavior:

He shared everything,” she said. “He shared his wealth. He shared his knowledge.” Indy Star

Martin Freedland a longtime friend and advisor of Bob Snyder and his team notes that, under Bob Snyder’s wing, Snyder Homes became a rarity among homebuilding operators – private or public – for having achieved and sustained 90% customer satisfaction scores and 10% net profitability on a consistent basis.

“He was a good guy who brought out the best in people around him,” says Freedland, who mentioned that homebuilding firm principals and executives this week have poured in notes, paying their respects to a man that many of them held up as an example of how to lead a homebuilding firm.

Joe Hardy, Paul Estridge, Bob Snyder each forged themselves in the furnace of purpose – like all of homebuilding and construction’s famed pioneers and heroes – cast in every case of the same everyday raw materials we all get to work with, but forged into something truly rare and special.

Beneath the roofs builders build, other people’s children live. And their children, and their parents, and grandparents, and friends. They laugh, cry, discover, make a memory, strive, enthuse, feel pain, doubt and fear as they live out real life beneath these roofs, in these neighborhoods. So, it should be no wonder then, that builders, whose lives, livelihoods, mission, and purpose fuse with the lives of other people’s children, become part of a broader, deeper story.

Not all magic and myth, but rather something simpler, more elegant, more profound, real. There’s no better time than now to appreciate the gift that keeps on giving in their leadership and legacy.

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