Christopherson Homes founder revives construction business

The Christopherson family, once owners of Sonoma County’s largest homebuilding company, are preparing early next year to break ground on their first residential subdivision here since the housing market’s crash.

However, family members say their new company won’t focus solely on new home construction. Instead, along with building new residences, their enterprise will include three other divisions to sell, flip and renovate existing homes.

The makeup of the new company, Synergy Group by Christopherson, plays to the experience the owners have developed, some of it gained in the lean days of the downturn. But the company’s diversification also reflects longtime builder Keith Christopherson’s cautious outlook for the region’s homebuilding industry.

“It’s not going to be the way it was,” Christopherson said Monday while announcing the new company. “The land isn’t there and the obstacles are great.” The challenges, he said, include obtaining financing for new subdivisions and a spate of new building regulations that have taken effect in the last five years.

Christopherson Homes constructed nearly 6,000 homes since 1978 and enjoyed a reputation for quality work. Before the last recession, the Santa Rosa company employed more than 200 people and was building homes in nine counties. The trade publication Professional Builder ranked it as the nation’s 179th-largest builder in 2007 with $113 million in revenues.

But when the financial crisis hit that year, homebuilders around the U.S. soon found themselves unable to sell homes, borrow money or pay their bills.

“Almost everybody got clobbered,” longtime Santa Rosa builder Tux Tuxhorn said of the local construction companies. As a result, he said, few remain in business today.

During the downturn, some of Christopherson Homes’ unfinished projects remained on display in the company’s hometown. In one development south of the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, 21 partially completed townhouses - some lacking finished roofs - sat empty for several winters until a bank was able to find a national homebuilder to buy the units and build out the subdivision.

Christopherson Homes eventually closed its doors. Christopherson said the company was “so upside down” that it could not pay back lenders, vendors and others it owed money.

“If we were able to live another couple hundred years, there’s no way we could meet all of our commitments,” he said. “That was very, very difficult.”

But Christopherson, his wife Brenda and adult son Andy kept working. Brenda Christopherson started a real estate brokerage, Artisan Signature Properties, which has been renamed Synergy Realty Group. Father and son, meanwhile, did general contracting work, with Keith Christopherson once more strapping on his tool belt and nail bag.

Working with investors, the three bought foreclosed homes at auction, renovated them and resold them, a process known as flipping homes. The Christophersons have flipped at least 70 homes in the past five years and are on track to complete up to 25 this year, said Brenda Christopherson. The completed homes vary in price from $400,000 to $1.4 million, with several of late listed between $700,000 and $900,000.

The Christophersons maintain they have taken a different approach to such renovations, which typically involve homes more than 30 years old. The company brings in a structural engineer, knocks down walls, adds vaulted ceilings and may create such features as dual master bedrooms.

When completed, “the kitchen isn’t usually where it was originally located,” said Andy Christopherson.

With regular open houses, the extensive remodels caught the attention of real estate agents and others. That led to existing homeowners asking the Christophersons to serve as designers and contractors for similar remodels of their homes.

“The renovation company has created quite a brand,” said Brenda Christopherson, who has designed about 2,000 homes for the family businesses.

Synergy Group, the new company the Christophersons announced this week, has nearly 35 employees and includes two new partners, Santa Rosa attorney Brian Flahavan and Greg Windisch, a co-founder and former owner of Trilogy Glass & Packaging.

“I love the energy of building a business,” Windisch said of his participation in the new company. Even as the economy improves, he believes Synergy will continue to acquire, renovate and resell homes because of the demand by home buyers for such properties.

In January, the company plans to begin production of a 10-unit development in Rincon Valley across Highway 12 from Skyhawk, an earlier Christopherson development. The new project, Sky Vista, will have homes tentatively priced from $850,000 to $1.2 million.

The company has acquired a total of five subdivisions with 62 lots for new construction.

Keith Woods, chief executive officer at the North Coast Builders Exchange, a Santa Rosa trade group, said the Christophersons exemplify those who found ways to stay in the construction business because they love to design and build homes.

“They know what they’re doing,” Woods said. “I’m optimistic for this venture, because they’re good.”

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @rdigit