Category Archives: Magazine

Acadiana Housing Market Sets Records Amidst Pandemic

Doug Ashy Celebrating 60 years

By Kathy Bowen Stolz “My dream is to have my own lumber yard,” a young Doug Ashy would tell his wife Claire. And 60 years ago that dream became a reality when he leased a small lumberyard on Johnston Street in Lafayette with the financial help of a silent partner’s $30,000. “I don’t know how…

2020 Parade of Homes

Home for the Holidays builds hope

with Annual Raffle House Campaign By Kathy Bowen Stolz “What’s Raised in Acadiana, Stays in Acadiana!” The Acadian Home Builders Association and its members are once again in the thick of their annual Home for the Holidays campaign and this has been their motto since the project’s inception 15 years ago. Home for the Holidays,…

Thinking Outside the Gate

Builder, Developer, AHBA President Bill LeBlanc Is Making Strides in the Industry Set in the heart of growth in Lafayette, Green Farms is a quiet retreat of 72 modern farmhouse-style homes in a private gated community but is ideally convenient to shopping, hospitals, restaurants, business centers and highways Inspired by the traditional charm of a…

Stimpson Risks Stability to Start Overton Homes

By Kathy Bowen Stolz Citing a philosophy of “big risk, big reward,” Lauren Overton Stimpson decided to leave the stability of teaching to become a builder after the experience of serving as the general contractor for her own home in 2014.  She said she got so many positive comments about her home’s exterior and interior…

Brown Goes Extra Mile with Prestige Custom Homes

By Kathy Bowen Stolz Jeff Brown of Prestige Custom Homes decided when he became a builder in 2014 that he was going to deliver the best product possible. It doesn’t matter if he’s building a 1,700 or 4,000 sq. ft. home or if it’s a speculative project or a presold custom home. He builds every…

Hurricane Katrina Leads to Hays Homes’ Conception

By Kathy Bowen Stolz When Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans in August 2005, it reshaped thousands of lives forever. One of those lives was Jay Hays’ of Hays Homes, for the floods that inundated New Orleans led him to a new career and a new city. You see, he was a young Realtor and…

America’s Choice by Family for Families

By Kathy Bowen Stolz America’s Choice Custom Builders is a family-owned business that believes in treating every customer like family. And just as family relationships are built on memories, builders Donald and Rocky Theaux want their customers to be in homes where they can proudly spend their lifetimes creating memories.  The Theauxs’ goal is to…

CJS Custom Builders Make Each Home Unique

By Kathy Bowen Stolz When Corey Simon, owner of CJS Custom Builders in Lafayette, decided to make a career change back in 2012, he simply picked up where he had left off. You see, Corey had worked with his grandfather, Willis Boudin, who was a builder, when Corey was in high school and college. Because…