About 30 years ago, Garry Brown–Neaves‘ secretary was working from a makeshift desk using an old door and some bricks. Around her was a small office crafted out of leftover windows from old building jobs.

Valerie Hill is still secretary to Mr Brown–Neaves, but the typewriter, the old door and windows are long gone. She now sits in an office in a state–of–the–art building in Osborne Park, while her boss still goes about the business of building homes, albeit on a much grander scale than three decades ago.

When Webb & Brown–Neaves was established in 1978, then bricklayer Mr Brown-Neaves and former new homes salesman John Webb set about building fairly basic homes after pooling their savings of $30,000 each. The first home they built was a three–bedroom, two–bathroom home in Shelley, which Mr Brown–Neaves remembers selling for about $26,000.

Mr Brown–Neaves said that, at the time, he harboured some pretty big ambitions.

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