Robert Toll’s building blocks keep him quite busy.
A conversation about constructing Toll Brothers, a $2.8 billion luxury real estate empire, starts in the car, continues on the airport tarmac, is punctuated by a short flight and reconvenes an hour later via cell phone en route to a Boston subdivision.
“A wise man knows what he doesn’t know,” says the chairman and CEO of Toll Brothers, reciting a principle he learned at Princeton law school.
That said, he passes driving directions to an aide.
“I learned to be very careful in business,” he says. “My father taught me in the beginning, ‘It’s more important not to lose money than to make it.'”
After 11 years of record earnings, 12 years of record revenue and 13 years of record sales contracts, Toll Brothers’ steady 20 percent growth average proves careful isn’t constrictive. Toll builds homes in 21 markets, hitting what he calls the sweet spot of construction: the supple, stable luxury market. Home prices in the target market average $556,000.
But for Toll, chairman and CEO of Toll Brothers, it’s more important to create a conscious company than to just break more ground. Building isn’t limited to bricks and mortar; communities are the foundation, says Kira McCarron, Toll Brothers’ chief marketing officer.
“We build neighborhoods, and we are leaving a legacy behind. We know we want to build again in the neighborhood, and we want to be invited back,” McCarron says of the raw material most critical to sustaining the house that Toll built — goodwill.
The company has raised more than $3 million for the American Red Cross in the last 13 years, and this year will filter contributions to the American Cancer Society. Giving also trickles down to the backyards of the 48,000 homes Toll Brothers has built since its inception, reaching organizations such as Toys for Tots and local groups from softballs teams to animal shelters.
“We are trying to be good neighbors,” McCarron says.
