House History
The company began as we realized traditional construction methods weren’t holding up to the powerful storms Mother Nature delivered. We endeavored to make a residential steel home and engineer it to withstand the storms that traditional wood homes just couldn’t stand up to. We found that storm-after-storm, our homes survived.
A Steel Heritage
The House family got started in steel construction back in 1979 when they 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 his brothers 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 Steel building.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 them 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 home buyers, and now we could give every customer the lowest possible price on a Kodiak Steel Homes model.
Founder Retires from the Steel Home Industry
After 25 years in the steel home industry, John House retires and hands over the reigns to Steve Yoder and Brad Darnell. In September 2017, company assets were acquired by Steve Yoder and Brad Darnell. Steve, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, also has 15 years experience in the security alarm business, a graduate degree in business, and 13 years with Kodiak Steel Homes. Brad Darnell, after having studied drafting and design atArkansas State University, had been working with Kodiak for the past 8 years as the lead drafter. The two feel their combined experience will be instrumental in taking the new Kodiak Steel Homes into the future.
