Holitzner Homes has a knack for making residential communities look attractive. The Ottawa-based company has been in the game long enough to spot and acquire prime locations and transform them into elegant single-family residence and townhouse developments, some with such monikers as Timbermere, Woodside, Riverbank, Coachman, Kanata Lakes and Deer Run.
Founded in 1958, the company has about 10 employees and brings in about $25 million in annual revenue each year. “Finding the right location is half the battle,” says Carmen Fleguel, Holitzner Homes president and the second generation in this family-run business. “We’re looking for the best of both worlds: city amenities in the heart of the country, as well as quiet residential neighborhoods conveniently accessible to urban services.”
More than a Feeling
Holitzner, which focuses on combining solid craftsmanship with advanced technology to accommodate busy lifestyles and family living, strives to implement quality materials, smart wiring and modern amenities into each dwelling it builds. “They don’t just build a house, they build a home,” distinguishes Terry of Stittsville, a satisfied customer. “The people at Holitzner went out of their way to make our purchase a rewarding experience. In fact, they finished our house in record time so that my family would not have to live out of suitcases.”
Creating a welcoming ambiance in the houses it builds is one of the big reasons Holitzner has been so successful. “We take great pride in knowing that most of our customers get a good feeling within minutes, if not seconds, of walking through the front door of a Holitzner home,” adds Fleguel. In addition to using quality materials and employing experienced craftsmen, the company aims to construct homes that will endure for generations while also meeting the demands of a variety of lifestyles.
Paul of Stittsville, another customer inspired to comment, had this to say: “The standard of excellence to which our house has been built is not typical of any previous home building or buying experience we have had. The beauty and quality of our home is beyond even our most hopeful expectations.”
Holitzner includes a SmartWire package on all of the homes it builds, an installation that has earned the company the Consumer Electronics Association’s highest pre-Wire TechHome rating. “The wire we install streamlines phone and cable capabilities and has a hub-box in the basement that can be upgraded quite a bit,” explains Fleguel. “So you can network all of your computers in the house and run it off of one main computer.”
Some customers have invested up $20,000 to upgrade their hub-box, according to Fleguel. “We’ve seen them go the whole nine yards with the entertainment section of it,” she says. “A few have also opted for advanced security systems.”
Environmental Initiatives
Along with Holitzner’s commitment to incorporate the highest quality of materials into its homes, it offers such energy savings options as insulation for basements, walls, attics with high heel trusses, sloped ceilings and exposed floors. Other energy savings activities include tape ductwork, air leakage control applications, a sealed continuous air barrier, insulated electrical boxes and air tight electrical and plumbing fixtures.
Building energy efficient, sustainable homes is a top priority at Holitzner. The company is an active participant in the Energy Star Program, which sets performance measures for all features of homes. “We incorporate Energy Star efficiencies as a standard now in all of the single family homes we build,” says Fleguel, “and all of our new projects will be energy star qualified.”
The company installs such Energy Star-rated products as furnaces, bathroom fans, compact fluorescent lights and energy efficient hot water tanks. It also regularly recycles, wood, steel and drywall. “Our employees are responsible for making sure recyclables from the job site get placed in the dedicated bins we have,” notes Fleguel. “We have an arrangement with a company that regularly picks up these materials and takes them away for recycling.”
Construction activities consume about three billion tons of raw materials each year, amounting to 40 percent of total global use, according to a recent study. Construction companies have made major strides in recent years in reducing the adverse impacts related to extraction, transport, processing, fabrication, installation, reuse, recycling and disposal activities.
Looking Ahead
Despite the global downturn in the economy, Fleguel says business is stronger than ever. “We’re going like gangbusters,” she says. “Soon we’ll be transitioning from our Brookside and Deer Run developments into a community in Barrhaven called Fraser Fields. These will all be EnergyStar qualified single-family homes.”
The company plans to build 84 homes in this community over a two year period. They will be bigger than the typical single-family home, but built on small lots (ranging from 1330 sq.-ft to 2566 sq.-ft.) to optimize affordability. “We’ll start selling them this fall and customers should be able to move into them by 2011,” Fleguel projects. Holitzner also plans to begin another EnergyStar qualified project next spring. “It’s a new urban townhome site called Mosaic in Kanata,” says Fleguel. “We’re really excited about it.”
While the company endeavors to keep up with environmental trends and technological advances, it also believes that instilling elegance and a personal touch into first-rate craftsmanship are keys to ensuring quality and customer satisfaction.
“We chose Holitzner primarily because of the style, construction materials and attention to detail,” says Lawrence of Stittsville. “My grandfather taught me from a very early age about quality building materials and workmanship. I am a perfectionist, and I can say with all honesty that Holitzner builds perfection.”