Times have changed for Robert Kaup who has been a suburban home builder for more than 25 years.
”The real estate industry today bears little resemblance to the homebuilding market of a quarter-century ago,” said the president of Camelot Homes in southwest suburban Orland Park.
”Since I started, I keep adding on years one by one, but everything else has multiplied,” said Kaup, who began building with his father in unincorporated Burbank in 1962. ”Sizes and prices have changed drastically, but so have needs.”
Currently, Camelot is developing Pinewood North, 154 single-family homes in Orland Park. Three-, four- and five-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath semi-custom homes range in size from 2,000 to 2,800 square feet and in price from $146,900 to $174,900.
”In contrast, our top home in the early 1960s went for $13,500,” Kaup said. ”It`s not much money now, but by today`s standards it wasn`t much house either-only 1,100 square feet, about half the size of our smallest model now.”
Much of the ”extra” square footage is seen in larger kitchens, formal dining rooms and two-car garages. Full baths are triple the number included in floor plans 26 years ago.
Todays` Camelot homes include mahogany trim, wall-to-wall carpeting, wood siding and masonry exteriors on all four sides, basements and two-car garages. ”The home`s design has been shuffled around as well,” he said. ”Dining rooms used to be centered between the kitchen, living room and the rest of the home. Today`s floor plans eliminate tracking through the dining room.”
Pinewood North is the fifth Camelot community, but that`s only since the firm changed names in the early 1970s. It previously was known as Kaup Homes, a title used since Kaup started his own firm in 1967.
”I never liked using my own name for the company name, so I changed it a few years later. I picked Camelot because of its origins-a perfect locale and a place of paradise, just like a home should be.”
The firm is the latest in a string of Kaup homebuilding companies that span generations.
”My family has been involved with homebuilding for more than 100 years, back to my ancestors in Norway,” he said.
According to Kaup, market changes in the last quarter-century have edged some homebuyers out of the running.
”It is much more difficult for the first-time buyer to enter the market today,” he said. ”The money necessary to make that first step has widened the gap. By comparison, move-up buyers have seen little change, because their homes` values have increased over the years.
”The move-up buyer has been the force behind the evolution of new homes in the past 26 years,” he said. ”They are the ones looking for more square footage and more choices.”
