StoryBook gets new chapter after sale to Toll Brothers

The recent sale of StoryBook Homes will not affect its local development, Boulder Hills Estates.

“Everything is the same,” said Wayne Laska, StoryBook Homes’ founder. “Everyone is still there.”

Luxury home developer Toll Brothers acquired the Las Vegas-based business in an undisclosed deal.

Laska and his wife, Catherine, founded StoryBook Homes in 2003 and have built more than 1,700 homes in Las Vegas as well as Boulder Hills Estates, the 127-home subdivision near the intersection of Adams Boulevard and Bristlecone Drive.

Wayne Laska said he and his wife had been contemplating selling their business for awhile, but it didn’t come together until the last few months. He said Toll Brothers reached out to him because they wanted to focus on first-time and move-up home buyers.

“They said, ‘We don’t do what you do,’” said Wayne Laska. “‘We want to learn what you do. We want to keep your people.’ … We have the best of both worlds now. We have the best of Toll Brothers and the best of us.”

In addition to no changes for Boulder Hills Estates, Wayne Laska said the company is planning to move forward with submitting a request for proposal for Tract 350 in Boulder City. That parcel of land is 45 acres and adjacent to the northeast portion of the golf course and south of Adams Boulevard. It was approved for sale by voters in 2010. In March, City Council directed staff to draft the request for proposal.

“Why wouldn’t we?” he said. “We’ve been really successful here.”

StoryBook broke ground on the first phase of Boulder Hills Estates in March 2018. There are three phases in the project. Phases one and two are complete, and eight of the 40 units of phase three are sold, according to Wayne Laska.

The single-family home development was the first new subdivision in the community in nearly 30 years.

Wayne Laska said he will continue to work, but he and his wife are planning to travel and spend more time with family.

Toll Brothers is based in Pennsylvania and has built luxury homes all over the country. Currently, it has built 16 luxury home communities in the Las Vegas area.

Both it and StoryBook sell a relatively small number of homes in Southern Nevada. The acquisition, however, gives Toll Brothers 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.

Gary Mayo, group president of Toll Brothers, said in a statement to the Las Vegas 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 it five additional communities and more than 550 homesites, further diversifying its “offerings and price points in the market,” Mayo said.

StoryBook Homes is Toll Brothers’ 14th homebuilder acquisition since 1995.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Eli Segall contributed to this report.

Contact reporter Celia Shortt Goodyear at cgoodyear@bouldercityreview.com or at 702-586-9401. Follow her on Twitter @csgoodyear.