Fieldstone Founder Sets Out on Another Mission : Home Builder Ochs Plans for Foreign Ministry
As a child, Peter M. Ochs used to spend his after-school hours at his father’s construction sites, where he recalls collecting nails in a tin can.
Young Ochs was the fifth generation of his family to show a passion for building things, and he grew up to found Fieldstone Co., Southern California’s largest privately owned home-building company.
Fieldstone, along with the rest of the construction business, was hit hard by the recession of the early 1990s, and now the industry is about to get another blow: the loss of one of its most respected leaders.
Ochs (pronounced Ox ) is retiring from real estate development at age 50 to start a new career as a Christian missionary. He and his wife, Gail, will leave in a few months for a year in Spain, where they plan to learn Spanish in preparation for a ministry in Central or South America.
He describes the move as repotting--uprooting himself from one career and transplanting to another. Such changes are important, Ochs believes, as is taking time out occasionally for reflection.
“The contemplative life in the 20th Century is a lost art,” he said. “Do I know how to do that? No. Is it scary? Yes. But we’re going to try.”
Ochs, a fixture in Southern California business circles for more than 20 years, will remain in a limited role as chairman of Fieldstone and will keep his majority stake in the company and two affiliates: Fieldstone Communities Inc. and Cypress Homes. But leading the Fieldstone Group of Cos. into the next century will be co-founder Keith Johnson, 51.
“I feel I took Fieldstone to a stage, and I’m pleased with it,” Ochs said during an interview at his Newport Beach office, where he displays part of his large collection of California Impressionist paintings. “Now it needs to be taken to the next stage. And another hand on the wheel will be better.”
In the past 13 years, Ochs and his partner have built a firm that has sold more than 12,500 homes throughout California, including nearly 1,100 last year, and generated revenue of $2.5 billion.
“He commanded the respect of all his peers in the industry,” said Sanford Goodkin, a real estate consultant in San Diego. “Ochs was a businessman who happened to be a home builder--but he could have headed any Fortune 500 company. He was elegant, disciplined and an excellent leader.”
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Ochs’ great-great-grandfather was a bricklayer. His great-grandfather was a home builder, as was his father.
Ochs grew up in Bethlehem, Pa., and attended Princeton University. He received a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University in 1967. He then took a job in the mergers and acquisitions department of American Standard in New York, where he led the company’s entry into real estate development.
After a few years, he came west and helped form William Lyon Co., a firm that eventually became one of the leading home builders in Southern California.
“Sometimes I drive through Orange County neighborhoods I built 20 years ago and just look at people living their lives in those homes,” Ochs said. “It’s very satisfying.”
He became president of the company in 1975 when founder William Lyon accepted a Pentagon offer to head the Air Force Reserve. Lyon returned in 1979 to reassume his previous position, but Ochs was not ready to step down.
Instead, the two men negotiated a compromise in which Ochs exchanged his stake in Lyon Co. for ownership of the company’s San Diego properties in 1981. Ochs and Johnson, who headed the San Diego division of Lyon, then used those properties as the foundation to form the Fieldstone companies.
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In an industry known for people who shoot from the hip, the soft-spoken Ochs earned a reputation of being thoughtful, deliberate and trustworthy.
“Ochs is someone who really walks his talk,” said Jeff Rocke, vice president for development at United Way, an organization that Ochs has actively supported.
Even business competitors and political foes take pains to say they respect Ochs. “There’s no question that he’s out for his interests, like any home builder,” said Tom Rogers, a San Juan Capistrano rancher and backer of Measure A, a 1988 slow-growth initiative in Orange County that Ochs helped defeat.
“Ochs is an adversary but a person I would feel comfortable inviting to my home--unlike some other builders.”
Over the years, Ochs has received a number of professional commendations, including his induction in 1991 into the California Industry Hall of Fame and his selection in 1989 as national builder of the year by Professional Builder magazine.
At the same time, he has done extensive charity work and is an active patron of the arts, having served on the boards of United Way, the South Coast Repertory Theater and the Orange County Business Committee for the Arts.
Although a member of Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach, Ochs is not much of a golfer or socializer. Instead, he and wife Gail typically spend weekends within their close circle of friends from church or work.
“His life is his company, his family and the church,” said Roland F. Osgood, president of the Newport Beach division of home builder Kaufman & Broad. “He doesn’t go out for beers with the guys or go play golf on Thursday afternoons. When you see him, you see him with his wife. But in business he is tough.”
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What is unclear now is what will happen to Fieldstone after Ochs leaves the helm. Several experts suggest that Fieldstone is either a prime acquisition target for a large out-of-state builder or a good candidate to go public, though Ochs said no stock offering is planned.
Despite Ochs’ reputation, he and his company have had their share of problems and controversy in recent years. The company has had run-ins with homeowners unhappy about the falling value of their new homes and environmentalists who disliked Ochs’ efforts to defeat Measure A.
When the real estate market began to decline in the late 1980s, Fieldstone found itself saddled with a lot of land it could not sell. The company is still trying to restructure loans on two troubled projects in San Diego and Orange counties.
Fieldstone defaulted on a $150-million loan for a 2,300-acre community in La Costa in northern San Diego County. According to Ochs, Fieldstone is now working with lenders to restructure the debt and begin building again.
Another formerly troubled project is a 584-acre residential development in Rancho Santa Margarita, where Fieldstone has been in default on several construction loans. The company has built and sold only about half of the 1,800 homes planned for the project, but it plans to build more after landing additional construction financing from Bank of America.
But these kinds of problems have been common for all developers in Southern California.
“I don’t think there’s a real estate developer that hasn’t suffered in this market,” said Kurt Kraushaar, manager of the real estate department for Union Bank in Irvine, which has about $50 million in loans outstanding to Fieldstone.
“But they are very well regarded,” he said. “Fieldstone is a company that Union Bank is going to continue to work with. They will be a force in this market.”
Whatever the problems Ochs is leaving behind, he says his departure is going to be difficult. “It’s such a drastic change,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for so long. It’s a huge adjustment process.”
Ochs’ missionary work will be carried out through a private foundation he set up called First Fruit, whose aim will be to recruit followers of Christianity and raise living standards in Latin America.
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While doing missionary work, Ochs plans to travel light, but by no means will he be spending all his time in remote areas or getting rid of his material possessions. He says he’ll spend a lot of time in the United States on fund raising, and he plans to keep his home in Newport Beach.
Profile: Peter M. Ochs
Company: Fieldstone Group of Cos.
Position: Co-founder and chairman
Age: 50
Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics, Princeton University, 1965; master’s degree in business administration, Stanford University, 1967
Background: American Standard Corp., financial analyst and vice president of real estate affiliate division, 1967-72. Co-founded William Lyon Co. in 1971 and served as president 1975-81. Co-founded Fieldstone in 1981 and serves as chairman.
Philanthropy: National chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society of United Way of America; chairman of the United Way National Board of Governors; past president and three-term member of the South Coast Repertory Theatre Board of Trustees; chairman of the Orange County Business Committee for the Arts board of directors
Personal: Lives in Newport Beach with wife Gail; four daughters. Serves as an elder at Mariners Church in Newport Beach.
Quote: “I will continue indefinitely to be fully committed to the company and its people. But I am looking forward to the opportunity for personal growth and growth among others employed here that this change of status will allow.”
Source: Fieldstone Group of Cos. Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times
Fieldstone Group
* Founded: 1981, by Peter M. Ochs and Keith A. Johnson
* Business: Home design and construction
* Headquarters: Newport Beach
* 1993 sales: $84.3 million
* 1994 sales: $85 million for first six months
* Current projects: 19 in Southern California
* Philanthropy: Fieldstone Foundation contributes to community, educational, cultural, humanitarian and Christian organizations and programs. It also maintains the Fieldstone Collection, a group of 250 early California paintings.
Source: Fieldstone Group of Cos. Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times
