In 1991, Len and Jill Helms started a house building company in Rotorua, and called it Golden Homes. Back then, home interiors were decorated in pastels, kitchen appliances were white, and no coffee table was complete without a bowl of pot pourri.
And houses in New Zealand were built mainly in weatherboard or using various types of monolithic cladding. If you wanted to build your new home in solid, dependable brick and tile, which a lot of people did, you had to hire an architect and private builder. But you were looking at a lot of money for that, especially if you were still trying to save for that new LaserDisc player.
Golden Homes was a little start-up company. We couldn’t compete with those major players on price. So we started offering what they didn’t – a good strong Kiwi brick-and-tile home for a fraction of what a private builder would charge. And within four short years, Golden Homes had made its mark on the New Zealand home building scene.
We started with innovation, and that’s what we’ve built our business on through the last 20+ years. We were the first home builders to offer double glazing and steel framing as standard features of our homes, and later we were the first again to introduce thermally broken windows as a standard.
Lots of things have changed since the early ‘90s. Kitchen appliances now are stainless steel, TVs have got bigger, and nowadays you’re much more likely to find a laptop on the coffee table.
But some things don’t change. Our licence owners have been with us almost since the start. They’ve grown with us, and together we’re as solid as the houses we build.
And Golden Homes are still the lowest-cost builders in the country. Even so, we build the best houses you’ll find. We pay close attention to detail. We’ve never built a leaky home. Not one of our franchisees has ever failed to complete a job. And there are thousands of very happy homeowners behind us.
A good story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end – but there isn’t an end to this one. We’ll keep doing what we’re doing, and giving Kiwi homeowners like you their own stories to tell.
We love happy endings.