Chad Cahill is optimistic ABOUT WHAT LIES AHEAD.

By PATRICIA LETAKIS

During hot Florida summers, when Chad Cahill was a kid cleaning houses for his dad, his daydreams were most likely about how he and his buddies would spend their carefree days before school started.

He wasn’t envisioning a future building multimillion-dollar luxury homes, even though he grew up in the family business — Cahill Homes — founded by Steve Cahill in 1977.

“It just never crossed my mind that homebuilding was something that I’d like to do,” Chad says. In fact, he graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in human resources development and started a career path in another direction.

By 2004, Chad had recognized that all those boyhood summers spent on construction sites had influenced him in ways he never realized. He approached his dad about joining the business.

“The story we tell is that my first office was a broom closet,” he says. “Literally, I started in a broom closet, working on small projects. It was the honey-do list of projects that needed someone to tackle.”

Chad reorganized the HR and safety programs for the company, and before he knew it his position had morphed into a full-time job. “It’s kind of fun to think about how I started at the bottom,” he muses. “In a lot of family businesses, children of founders get hired for management positions and they don’t know what they’re doing. I’m glad that’s not how I started.”

The Great Recession was a challenge for all homebuilders — but Chad took it as an opportunity to become even more intimately familiar with the operation of the business.

“This was all new to us and I wanted to be as helpful to my father as possible as we navigated uncharted territory,” he says. “From that point forward I knew where every dollar was and what was being paid on every job. At that point, my career really started; it got serious.”

Now president of Cahill Homes, Chad runs the company and is responsible for everything from marketing to sales and customer relationships to hiring and money management.

Executive Vice President Judd Webster is a constant presence on construction sites, and handles everything from scheduling and subcontractor management to completion of the homes built by the company.

Webster has worked with Steve since 1980 and is considered part of the Cahill family. Chad even recalls Webster picking him up from pre-school. The two — in addition to Steve, who has lessened his day-to-day involvement with Chad on board — comprise the management team.

Over the last 12 years, Cahill Homes has been recognized for its luxurious custom homes in Golden Oak at Walt Disney World Resort. Homes in the community can be up to 20,000plus square feet and carry price tags well into seven figures.

Cahill Homes has built more than 80 Golden Oak homes in architectural styles that include Tuscan, French,  American Farmhouse, Modern Farmhouse, New England Coastal, English Cottage, Greek Villa and Contemporary.

The company is finishing the last of the gigantic showplaces in Golden Oak. They’re in the process of completing a 20,000-square-foot home and drawing plans for a truly monumental 40,000-square-foot home just outside of the community.

The Cahill Homes team has also found much success in the Golden Oak product called “The Cottages.” The Cottages range in size from 1,800 square feet to 3,500 square feet. “They sold so fast. People love them.”

He says that the success of The Cottages reinforces his observation of an emerging trend, especially among downsizing boomers, to prefer smaller homes — with top-flight finishes — even on larger lots.

Chad points out that years of experience have helped the company hone its craft and create a stress-free process for homeowners — an all-in-one, one-stop shop approach that the company calls Cahill Complete.

“Building a home can seem really cumbersome and people don’t know quite where to start,” Chad says. But he believes that trust is the key to a successful homeowner and builder relationship. “It’s important that the buyer knows that the builder cares about them, their family, the end product, and — most importantly — about the product after the final walkthrough,” he adds.

“If you want a Cahill Complete house, you’re basically saying, ‘Chad, I want you to handle building my house from A to Z. I want you to handle the architecture, I want you to manage the designer and I want Cahill Homes to be my sole point of contact.”

Until now, the company has built almost exclusively in highend gated communities such as Lake Nona, Isleworth and, of course, Golden Oak. As these luxury communities mature, he’s excited about seeking opportunities in other locations.

“We love what we do and are excited about the opportunities that are to come and the families we will get to create beautiful homes for. Whether that is in Winter Park, Windermere or another location near Central Florida,” says Chad.

What drives Chad is the challenge of implementing new ideas. Although he enjoys the ins and outs of running a company, his favorite part about going to work every day is the people with whom he deals.

“I love the relationships with homeowners, with my team and with subcontractors,” he says. “I love building houses, but I love people — and building houses gives me the opportunity to be with people, work with people.”

Chad lives in Central Florida with his wife and two sons. They enjoy traveling, playing sports and eating great food together. For more information, visit cahillhomes.com. n