Stonebrook Homes

The former top officers of financially battered Woodcrest Development Inc. said Tuesday that they are starting a new company and hope to have as many as 525 houses under construction within a few months. Ronald Gilles, formerly Woodcrest's corporate president, will be chairman and chief executive of the new StoneBrook Homes and will operate from offices in Irvine. Wayne A. Barnett, who had headed Woodcrest's San Diego division, will be president and chief operating officer of the new company.

In another sign that Orange County's housing market is recovering, a New Jersey home builder has purchased StoneBrook Homes in Newport Beach and acquired 98 housing sites in Yorba Linda. Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., the nation's 10th-largest home builder, purchased StoneBrook for less than $1 million, but possible incentives to management if the company is successful could push the purchase price to about $2 million, according to Nick Pappas, president of K. Hovnanian Cos.

In another sign that Orange County's housing market is recovering, a New Jersey home builder has purchased StoneBrook Homes in Newport Beach and acquired 98 housing sites in Yorba Linda. Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., the nation's 10th-largest home builder, purchased StoneBrook for less than $1 million, but possible incentives to management if the company is successful could push the purchase price to about $2 million, according to Nick Pappas, president of K. Hovnanian Cos.

The former top officers of financially battered Woodcrest Development Inc. said Tuesday that they are starting a new company and hope to have as many as 525 houses under construction within a few months. Ronald Gilles, formerly Woodcrest's corporate president, will be chairman and chief executive of the new StoneBrook Homes and will operate from offices in Irvine. Wayne A. Barnett, who had headed Woodcrest's San Diego division, will be president and chief operating officer of the new company.

A major East Coast home-builder that entered the Southern California housing market just last year has laid off 14 workers in Orange County and San Diego, and closed its San Diego division. Some real estate sources said the home-builder, Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., may scale back its Southern California operations even more in the wake of declining home sales and housing prices here, but Nick Pappas, president of the company's Newport Beach division, insisted that Hovnanian is "here to stay."

The names William Lyon, Jim Peters, Kathryn Thompson and the Baldwins have always been golden when it comes to home building in Orange County. But for the identities of the building powerhouses of tomorrow--look to Wall Street. In what essentially is a "Wal-Martization" of the local real estate industry, major national firms such as Lennar Corp., K. Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. and Centex Corp. are flexing their muscles in Orange County's housing market.