The American Dream. It's not about marble floors or granite countertops. It's not about acreage, square footage, 3-car garages or stainless steel appliances. "That's the American Expectation. The American Dream is more basic," contends Jack Hoffman, a home building legend in the Chicago area for decades. He knows more than most about the American Dream.

Jack tapped into it big time in the late 1940s. A Navy veteran, he was one of countless young men eligible to take advantage of the GI Bill and go back to school or secure a mortgage. "If you were a GI, you could literally buy a home with no money down. All you needed was a job." Along with his father Sam Hoffman, Jack began to meet the GI demand for basic starter homes, first in the Phoenix area, then in Chicago.

"There hadn't been much building in Chicago since the 1920s, so there was tremendous potential," especially in suburban areas where Jack and his father purchased 200 acres. This eventually became Hoffman Estates, a community that today has 50,000 people, 17,000 residences and more than a million square feet of retail shopping.

The American Dream is what it's all about, according to Buz Hoffman, Jack's son. Buz is founder and president of Lakewood Homes, based in Hoffman Estates. In the 1980s while still working for the homebuilding firm started by his father and grandfather, Buz noticed a troubling trend: With each year, home building was becoming more about expectations, not dreams. "Big was better and expensive was better yet."
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So in 1990, Buz Hoffman decided to get back to basics-back to the American Dream-by starting his own home building firm. "It's estimated that two thirds of the population own homes; that leaves one third that doesn't, because they've been disenfranchised by expectations that put ownership out of reach. I wanted to build homes for that one third."

Buz created Lakewood Homes and dedicated it to building a new generation of homes like the kind his father built and that so many of us grew up in: Well-built starter homes for the entry level market. "The idea was to give a segment of the population that had been too long under-served a chance to achieve the American Dream."

Just as his father did, Buz built thousands of new homes-more than 14,000 in communities throughout the Chicago suburbs. Though Lakewood has expanded the firm's offerings to include collections of somewhat higher priced estate homes and even created a successful active-adult community, Buz's heart is still very much with the first-time buyer.

This has helped Lakewood Homes become the area's leading locally owned builder. The Lakewood name, like the Hoffman name, stands as a symbol of old-fashioned quality, value and customer satisfaction. Opinion surveys by America's most well known research firm ranked Lakewood Homes "highest in customer satisfaction with Chicago area home buyers," year after year. Many Lakewood home buyers express their satisfaction by making repeat purchases, and by telling their friends. Lakewood has the highest referral rate in the business.

Buying a Lakewood home is a pleasant experience, from your first visit, to the day you move in and beyond. Every Lakewood home is a testament to Buz Hoffman's family tradition of quality and value. As Jack said long ago, "The ability to own a home-and have your own backyard to call yours alone-that was the American Dream." That still is the American Dream. And today, Lakewood Homes is proud to make it an attainable dream for you and your family.
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