Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers acquires Las Vegas developer

In the fall of 1974, a Marine private named Wayne Laska was featured in the Review-Journal after he finished boot camp, one of several locals who appeared in the paper that day for completing basic training.

Laska, who was 17 at the time and had been kicked out of high school, later entered Southern Nevada’s home construction industry. Now after decades in the business, and a near-brush with bankruptcy during the Great Recession, he has sold his company amid a heated housing market.

Luxury housing developer Toll Brothers announced last week that it acquired Laska’s firm, StoryBook Homes, saying the deal was “an exciting opportunity to quickly add to our already fast-growing Las Vegas operations.”

Terms were not disclosed.

Both Toll and StoryBook sell a relatively small number of homes in Southern Nevada. But the acquisition gives Toll a foothold in a more affordable slice of the market, expanding its buyer pool as prices reach record highs in Southern Nevada, and further consolidates the valley’s homebuilding sector into the hands of national, publicly traded developers.

‘It’s time for us’

Gary Mayo, group president with Pennsylvania-based Toll, said in a statement to the Review-Journal that the company “has been expanding its product offerings in Las Vegas and throughout the country for many years,” with base prices in Southern Nevada from the upper-$400,000 range to more than $1.3 million.

The StoryBook acquisition gives Toll five additional communities and more than 550 homesites, further diversifying its “offerings and price points in the market,” Mayo said.

According to last week’s news release, Las Vegas-based StoryBook “primarily serves first-time and move-up” buyers, with prices spanning from the mid-$200,000 range to more than $600,000.

Its employees will remain with the company and continue to operate under the StoryBook brand, Toll said.

Laska said the buyout does not include The Mercer, a luxury apartment complex he developed in the southwest valley.

StoryBook has built more than 1,700 houses since its inception, said Laska, who founded the company with his wife, Catherine, in 2003. He noted he is 64 years old and indicated he and his wife have talked about selling for the past few years, adding they want to spend more time together.

“It’s time for us, and it’s a great time because it’s such a good market,” he said.

‘Heading nowhere fast’

Las Vegas’ housing market has accelerated over the past year with record-high prices and rapid sales, thanks largely to rock-bottom mortgage rates that have let buyers stretch their budgets.

Overall, homebuilders reported 7,348 net sales — newly signed sales contracts minus cancellations — this year through June in Southern Nevada. Toll accounted for 345 net sales, and StoryBook generated 80, according to Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research.

The valley’s home construction industry is dominated by national builders such as KB Home, Lennar Corp. and PulteGroup. More locally based builders used to be in the region, but through a mix of busts and buyouts, the number has depleted.

StoryBook almost didn’t make it this far. Laska said he almost went out of business three times and came close to filing for bankruptcy during the Great Recession of a decade or so ago, after the mid-2000s bubble burst and homebuilders’ sales evaporated.

Laska has long ties to the region. He moved to Las Vegas from New Jersey when he was around 10, went to Cashman Middle School and Clark High School, and joined the Marines as a teenager.

“I got kicked out of high school. … I was heading nowhere fast,” he said.

He spent four years in the Marines, started working in homebuilding in 1985 for the Lewis family, went to college and joined the developer now known as KB Home after it acquired Lewis Homes in 1999.

He resigned in 2002, months after his youngest son was diagnosed with cancer as a toddler.

His son is now 23 and just joined Toll Brothers, Laska said.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.