Otto divosta biography
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We look forward to the next chapter of the Buz DiVosta legacy. Divosta was appointed by Governor Jeb Bush in 2002 to the Destination Florida Commission, and in 2007 he was inducted into the Gold Coast Builders Association Hall of Fame.
A Legacy 50 Years in the Making
As the visionary leader behind Storie Florida, Otto “Buz” DiVosta is no stranger to building legendary communities.
DiVosta and Clifford F. Burg formed Burg & DiVosta Corporation to combine Burg"s construction experience with DiVosta"s development company. By 1989, when Burg left and the company became DiVosta and Company, it was a $105 million-per-year business with 800 employees.
DiVosta’s focus on efficiency and quality control resulted in what he called “Customers for Life,” who bought one DiVosta home after another.He built much of Jupiter’s 2,000-acre Abacoa community, where the first neighborhood, New Haven, was so successful, DiVosta had to use a lottery once again for buyers to choose their homes.
In 1998 DiVosta sold his company to Pulte Home Corp., which continued to use the trademarked DiVosta Building System; he remained as president during the transition.
Otto Divosta
engineercivil engineer
Otto Divosta was a principal partner of a major home development company based in South Florida.
Career
In the 1970s, he developed a process for building multi-family homes in an assembly line fashion.
The house was auctioned off with proceeds to be donated to the City of Palm Beach Gardens for a municipal swimming pool.
This was believed to be a world record-breaking construction, beating a previous record of 19 hours. This controlled supply chain approach ensured everything from plumbing to building cabinets was finished to the highest quality by specialized craftspeople.
His goal is to create a community concept that applies his out-of-the-box thinking to community planning. Storie will take the cherished Martin County lifestyle to an entirely new level. Buz DiVosta has been a trailblazer in the construction of solid concrete structures, and his efficient building techniques are used by builders nationally.
The company was able to build townhouses in just 47 days due to using this cast-in-place method, pre-assembling major parts of the house, hiring suppliers and workmen in-house, and limiting buyers’ choices.
Garden Lakes, one of the company’s first townhouse communities, sold out in one day in 1978.
Over forty-plus years, DiVosta used his innovative methods to build about 30,000 townhouses and houses in Palm Beach, Martin, and St. Lucie Counties. Having built homes across Florida, each Buz DiVosta residence has been delivered with a reputation of solid construction, quality designs, and priced affordability that has become legendary.
Today, Buz DiVosta has turned his attention to bringing this same level of imaginative thinking to Martin County.
Having had the land in the family for decades, Buz is ready to embark on what many are saying is his crowning achievement. They formed Burg and DiVosta with Clifford Burg in 1975, when they imported Moduplex, a French concrete building system. Since the 1960s, DiVosta has built 40,000 homes in Florida.
DiVosta sold his company to Pulte Homes in 1998.
He developed a quick-setting cement used in 1981 to build a three-bedroom, two-bath home, with a two-car garage, in seven hours and 35 minutes.
His aspirations for Storie have evolved beyond his homebuilding foundation. At twenty, DiVosta married Betty J. Schmidt(1935-) and designed his first house; at twenty-two, he started a rock lath contracting business.
In 1958 the DiVostas settled in Jupiter, where they built 300 houses through the 1960s, including many on Jupiter Island.
Notables
Otto B. “Buz” DiVosta, Jr. (1934- ) was born in Stamford, Connecticut, and moved to south Florida with his family when he was twelve. As a recognized industry leader in both commercial and residential construction, his innovative thinking has created a reputation for excellence earned over the past 4 decades.
Buz’s pioneering Built-Solid Building System created homes with a level of efficiency and quality control unmatched in the industry.