Pardee celebrates 60 years

In May 1952, when the Sands and the Sahara casino-hotels had just opened on the Strip, the Pardee brothers started building homes in the young and booming Las Vegas that boasted a population of some 25,000 residents.

In the past 60 years, Pardee Homes has built residences for more than 40,000 families in 150 neighborhoods and more than 10 master-planned communities in the Las Vegas area, starting with College Park in North Las Vegas and “forever houses” in Francisco Park near Sahara Avenue and Maryland Parkway. Built with cinder blocks, steel doors and rock roofs, the Forever House won the first three national awards ever given by the National Association of Homebuilders in the early 1950s.

The company was founded by George Pardee Sr. in 1921 in Southern California.

After introducing five new neighborhoods in 2012, Pardee opened Eldorado Heights, last month in Eldorado, a master-planned community in North Las Vegas. Open for sales in April 1990, Eldorado will include about 6,500 homes on 1,080 acres when it is completed.

More than a builder of homes, Pardee is a builder of communities, according to Pardee Homes President Mike McGee.

“For six decades Pardee has kept its commitment to create communities where housing works in concert with other critical elements, including parks and schools,” McGee said. “As a result, the company has been recognized as a pioneer in master planning for quality of life in Southern Nevada.”

According to a Pardee family history, Pardee brothers George Jr., Hoyt and Doug, who took over the business after World War II, were able to get the first no-down Veterans Affairs financing and sold houses at less than $11,000 on their 80-acre College Park site in North Las Vegas, which they purchased for about $1,500 an acre.

They started advertising on a Wednesday that sales would open at 8 a.m. Saturday. A line had formed before dawn and by Sunday the Pardees had sold more than 200 homes.

As a result of difficulties in getting the loans processed for the VA buyers, the Pardees decided to form their own mortgage company, Pacific Western Mortgage, which became one of the largest mortgage companies in the country.

One of the difficulties of starting that business was getting others to invest in Las Vegas, which was not yet seen as a safe bet for corporate America.

The Pardee brothers eventually acquired most of the downtown business district of North Las Vegas and gave the city the land for a City Hall. Because of the company’s record of creating affordable and attractive communities, the city of North Las Vegas chose Pardee to develop the Eldorado community. Pardee Homes also developed Eldorado and Seastrand parks in the area, and donated land for Lee Antonello Elementary School, which was named for a late Pardee executive.

Schools and parks have been central features of Pardee’s master-planned communities in Southern Nevada, beginning with Spring Valley, which is one of Clark County’s first master-planned communities. In 1969, Pardee spent more than $1 million to bring water lines out to the 1,160-acre area. Today, about 6,000 families live in the 15 Pardee-built neighborhoods in the original Spring Valley area, marked by tree-lined walkways, parks, schools, churches and retail centers.

Pardee is also recognized as a national leader in environmentally responsible development, earning national, state and local awards for building energy-efficient homes through the company’s LivingSmart program that save nearly 23,000 tons of greenhouse gases each year. Pardee built the Ultimate Family Home, a near Zero Energy home, for the 2004 International Builders Show in Las Vegas, showcasing extraordinary energy efficiencies.

“Ongoing changes in household design, technology and market demographics continue to make home and community planning a fascinating and complex field,” McGee said. “And no market is more fascinating than Las Vegas. After 60 years, we still view this market as the land of opportunity.”

Pardee offers seven new-home neighborhoods in the Las Vegas Valley, including three distinct LivingSmart Homes offerings in Mountain’s Edge in the southwest, Providence in the northwest and Eldorado Ridge in Eldorado in North Las Vegas.

Durango Ranch, located at the intersection of Pebble and Cimarron roads in southwest Las Vegas, features single-story homes on large home sites with optional casitas and as many as four bays in the garages.

The builder’s new Durango Trails neighborhood is scheduled to open at Durango Ranch in April.

Pardee’s Horizon Ridge, at Horizon Ridge Parkway and Gibson Road in Henderson, features the builder’s LivingSmart collection of three two-story floor plans that range from 2,183 to 3,001 square feet with great and bonus rooms, as many as seven bedrooms and optional decks.

Eldorado Heights is the first neighborhood to offer Pardee’s GenSmart Suite, which has a private entrance and living areas and is designed for families that are sharing a home.

Located off Deer Springs Road at Gentle Brook Street, east of Aliante Parkway, Eldorado Heights homes range in size from 2,385 to 4,241 square feet in one- and two-story designs with as many as seven bedrooms and five baths.

For more information about Pardee, call 702-604-3332 or visit www.pardeehomes.com. You can also follow Pardee on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PardeeHomesLasVegas.