Randall Presley: Ahwatukee Visionary

Editor's Note: This is the first of a two-part series. See the conclusion in the Wednesday, July 9 AFN.

He wanted to fly, but the U.S. Army Air Corps was long on pilots and short on bombadiers. He ended up an award-winning pilot as well as a flight instructor. Real estate development followed, and happily, for Ahwatukee Foothills, the rest is history.

Although he'd done some light construction work while growing up in Pensacola, Fla., Randall Presley's interest in real estate was sparked by a fellow squadron member during World War II. Presley studied for his real estate broker's license while in the service and initiated pursuit of it the day he was discharged in 1946. He began his career by subdividing three acres of land and constructing 12 houses in Bakersfield, Calif., and ended it 38 years later by selling his company for $93 million. By then, the Presley Companies had overseen construction of close to 40,000 homes and been ranked in the Top 10 in the country by the National Homebuilders Association of America.

Presley subdivided and developed Bakersfield land in progressively larger parcels, selling more than 100 houses a year by 1950. His projects became more ambitious in size and scope, until Presley developments dotted both northern and southern California. Of his initial expansion into southern California, Presley recalls that "Every morning I'd get up early, start in Oxnard and go all the way down into Orange County. I checked every community, every property and every model home to see what was built where, and what market conditions were." Befitting a master of his craft, he adds emphatically, "Because this is what you have to know."

Although a very distant cousin of Elvis, Presley laughs, "I never met him or had any desire to."

A father with three young children, Presley became a widower in 1958. His remarriage three years later to an Olympic-caliber equestrian jumping rider, who had been raised by her grandfather, Hollywood icon Cecil B. DeMille, came after Presley, a scratch golfer, won the Bakersfield Country Club championship in 1960.

Business-wise, he recalls, "I wanted to spread my wings. I had been doing work in Bakersfield, but wanted to move to a larger arena."

By 1969 the Presley Development Company was trading on the New York Stock Exchange and had offices in Chicago, Virginia, New Mexico and Washington D.C., in addition to California and Arizona. Each office had its own management team, freeing Presley to concentrate on development of new markets. His companies bought and developed land, subcontracting out the actual construction work.

"What you do is set the standards - and make darn sure they're followed!" Presley said. He credits Presley Development Company of Arizona presidents Dan Verska and Bruce Gillam with much of Ahwatukee's success.

Starting with that initial 1946 project, Presley capitalized on the proximity of an existing neighborhood. Similarly, his first Arizona venture, Arizona Homes, on 100 acres of land on the west side of town, offered residents of a nearby John Long-built community a move-up alternative in 1969. The same principle of extending an existing community guided Presley's other Arizona projects, the 80-acre Parkside Estates, also in the West Valley, and a portion of The Lakes in Tempe. But Ahwatukee broke the mold.

Pilot training at Glendale's Thunderbird Field in 1943 left the 25 year-old Presley with a favorable impression of the Phoenix area. Over in California, he first learned of 2,080 acres south of South Mountain from a title insurance company in 1970. The location was considered to be quite remote, with only the town of Guadalupe and vast swaths of open desert adjacent the relatively new Maricopa Freeway. Presley, whose Orange County, Calif., developments typically featured amenities such as roadway medians and lush landscaping, had concerns.

"I was up and down that highway 30 or 40 times, asking myself, ‘Will people drive past that community on the other side of the freeway and come out here and buy a house? From a buyer's perspective, would I go out there looking? I finally decided that I would, if there was something that was good enough.'"

Marty Gibson is a 20-year resident of the community and the author of Phoenix's Ahwatukee Foothills. Contact him at mgibson24@cox.net.