Sherlock Holmes ‘Connection’ Helps Developer Sell Homes
David Young says he isn’t interested in sleuthing, but he did take up a magnifying glass recently to portray the fictional English detective Sherlock Holmes for a series of advertisements for his home-building company.
The ads feature the Scottish-born Young, whose features bear a slight resemblance to those of the late actor Basil Rathbone, posing as a pipe-smoking, tweedy Sherlock who has discovered a solution to high housing prices. The solution--a truly elementary one considering Young’s real occupation--is, of course, to purchase a home built by Young & Praisler Development Corp. of Santa Ana.
But while the message wasn’t unusual, the method certainly was--few builders appear in their own ads and fewer still can do it with a sense of humor.
Young, who has been known to wear a kilt to the office on important days such as the anniversary of the birth of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, has taken his Holmes impersonation beyond the conventional in a new series of ads that features the 57-year-old builder wearing only a large wooden barrel and a deerstalker’s cap.
The captions under the picture announce that Young & Praisler are “beating the pants off the competition” and have “homes for every body.”
Obviously, Young doesn’t take himself too seriously.
He said he doesn’t think any of his competitors would be willing to wear a barrel to advertise their new homes. But he said he likes the idea of doing something that isn’t a traditionally conservative real estate ad and thinks it is a way to make readers remember the name of the firm he owns with partner John Praisler.
A Holmes Fan
“I’ve always been a Sherlock Holmes fan,” Young said, “although I’ve not made a fetish of it.”
Young has a collection of the Sherlock Holmes books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and likes to watch old Holmes movies such as “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” but he said he doesn’t belong to the Baker Street Irregulars or the Sherlock Holmes Society, two groups of Holmes admirers.
And while he did spend several years in London working as an accountant, Young said his only visits to Holmes’ Baker Street neighborhood were to patronize a wine bar.
Displayed on his desk is a photograph of actor Rathbone, who played Holmes in a series of 1940s movies and made famous the dashing, tweed-caped look that Young emulates. The newspaper ad campaign, which started last September, was the creation of Lyn Sherwood, Young & Praisler’s public relations agent.
Young landed the part of Sherlock because Sherwood had trouble locating a properly British costume and finding an actor to play Holmes.
Young decided to lend a hand, certain that he could at least acquire the right outfit, although he didn’t intend to model it himself.
But tweed capes are hard to come by in Southern California.
“All I could find were Dracula capes,” said Young, who already possessed not only a deerstalker cap but an undeniably distinguished British air.
Took Up His Pipe
Sherwood came up with the idea of Young posing for the ad and persisted until the builder donned his Harris tweed jacket, knotted a cravat around his neck, slapped the deerstalker on his head and clenched his teeth around a pipestem.
The somewhat more reserved Praisler, 42, grew up in Pasadena and won’t be appearing in any future advertisements as a Dr. Watson to Young’s Holmes. It’s not because Praisler doesn’t have a British accent, but rather, Young said, that the two are equal partners and Watson always played second fiddle to Holmes.
Personal involvement in his firm is nothing new to Young.
Six years ago, when Young and Praisler opened their first housing development in Fontana, the partners put up the signs themselves--dug the post holes, got some water from a nearby fire hydrant to mix the cement, had a couple of beers and went home.
Young was born and raised in Glasgow and still has a bit of a Scottish accent. After graduating from high school, he spent two years stationed in Singapore as a second lieutenant in the British Army. When he left the army in 1949, he decided to stay in London and served an apprenticeship to become a chartered accountant, which he describes as the British equivalent of a certified public accountant.
After joining the London office of the accounting firm of Arthur Young & Co.--no relation--Young said his career as an accountant garnered him assignments such as the 10 months he spent “tramping about in the jungle” in Indonesia, conducting audits for oil companies.
Started Their Own Firm
Young came to the United States in 1958 as managing audit partner for the Los Angeles office of Arthur Young & Co., which he left in 1961 to begin a new career in the real estate industry. Young became a naturalized citizen in 1967, met Praisler in 1969 when he went to work for the Buccola Co. in Newport Beach and left Buccola with Praisler in 1979 when that company closed down and Young and Praisler decided to start their own business.
Young said his background in accounting and Praisler’s training as an architect enable the two men to “balance each other out” in managing their company--which has had $11 million in sales in the past nine months.
The opening of their Northgate development in Fontana last October was a bit fancier than the unveiling of their first development--it featured hot dogs, popcorn, Irish music, clowns and professionally installed signs.
In a firm with only 10 permanent employees including the two partners, Young often handles inquiries from homeowners personally. He said he likes it that way and that he turned down a purchase offer from a major real estate firm because he prefers to be his own boss.
Additionally, Young said he believes that a small builder is better able to survive fluctuations in the housing market--such as the 1981-82 recession--because a smaller firm isn’t likely to be caught with a large number of unsold homes.
The firm has focused since its founding on the rapidly growing Fontana area of San Bernardino County because land there is much less expensive than in Orange County, Young said. The company’s current development features single-family detached houses ranging from 842 square feet to 1,542 square feet at prices from $60,950 to $90,950. Young said the company has sold 430 houses since 1979, and now is planning a new housing development and an apartment complex.
