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Kodiak Steel Homes: House History

An early steel homes brochure, ca. 1995


A Heritage steel homes brochure, ca. 2000


One of NCI's 34 state-of-the-art
manufacturing facilities



Dozens of coils of red-iron steel awaiting
fabrication



Scott House examines some of NCI's
fabrication equipment Family Business
The Kodiak Steel Homes^® company is a family-owned and operated business. John House is the company president and CEO. His sister, Missy Thornton, is the vice president and secretary treasurer, and her son Chase is training as a drafter.

A Steel Heritage
The House family got started in steel construction back in 1979 when John and Missy's brothers, Byron and Scott (and Scott's wife Barbara), formed Heritage Building Systems and began selling commercial buildings. Within a few years, they had built the company into one of the most successful and best-known names in the steel building industry.

The Customer is Always Right
As Heritage's business grew, its owners were surprised by the number of customers who were interested in using all or part of a commercial steel building as a residence. Even though these structures were not designed for that purpose, several people actually converted them into homes. Most did it in order to save money, but many also recognized the main advantage these buildings had over traditional stick-built houses — strength.

All Steel Homes
After Hurricane Hugo devastated the Carolinas in 1992, destroying thousands of homes, several Heritage customers in that area reported that their steel buildings had weathered the storm with no damage. These accounts just reinforced an idea that had been growing inside Heritage for some time. By then, John House had become one of Heritage's top salesmen, and Scott and Byron asked him to start developing a line of homes based on the same design principles as their steel buildings. John's project quickly became a new division of the company — Heritage All Steel Homes.

A New Approach
In 2003, All Steel Homes broke away from Heritage as a separate company and eventually moved into its own offices. Although All Steel Homes now had its own sales force and its own design and drafting department, Heritage continued to sell the homes as well.

Homes Alone
In late 2004, the House family sold their two commercial building companies — Heritage and Steelbuilding.com — to NCI LP of Houston, the largest manufacturer of metal building components in the United States. The family held on to their steel home company, believing that it represented the future of residential construction. Now truly independent, the company needed a new name, one that distinguished it from competitors and symbolized its virtues. They chose the name Kodiak and the image of the bear because these suggested strength and harmony with nature, two important attributes of their homes.

Strategic Alliance
While negotiating the sale of their highly profitable building companies, the House family concluded an agreement giving NCI the exclusive right to manufacture the steel components for Kodiak Steel Homes framing systems. It assured us long-term access to NCI's state of the art fabrication systems and preserved the competitive pricing that the House family had earned as one of NCI's top customers. The strategic alliance between the two companies meant that Kodiak Steel Homes customers could continue enjoying high-quality products at affordable prices.

Direct to the Public
For almost two years, Heritage Building Systems (now a division of NCI) remained a dealer for Kodiak Steel Homes kits. Then, in early 2007, we decided to eliminate all dealer programs. Our philosophy had always been to market directly to homebuyers, and now we could give every customer the lowest possible price on a Kodiak Steel Homes model.

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