a personal stake Arlan and Mary Alice Collatz of Tiffany Homes Southwest build luxury homes at a reasonable price in family-friendly neighborhoods.
By Jane Mahoney Photography by Kirk Gittings

Before even envisioning the first street, before bringing in the first backhoe, wouldn’t it be nice if every residential developer or builder asked himself or herself, “Would I live in this neighborhood? Would I live in this home?”

Those very questions are the litmus test for the husband and wife team of Arlan and Mary Alice Collatz, founders and principals of Tiffany Homes Southwest.

“If I wouldn’t live there, why would I expect anyone else to?” asks Mary Alice, who grew up on an isolated ranch east of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and today serves as chief financial officer for the company founded by her husband 26 years ago. “Not necessarily at this time in our lives, but at some point, would we have lived here? Would we want our kids to live there?”

That personal stake in community speaks volumes about Tiffany Homes, where longtime employees refer to “homes” rather than “units” being built. This homegrown New Mexico company safeguards its reputation for luxurious homes at a production price by doing work right the first time around.

As a Featured Builder in the 2007 Homes of Enchantment Parade, Tiffany Homes is introducing its newest community of Ocotillo Hills in Rio Rancho. With five new floor plans available for the 44-home neighborhood, Parade participants might notice something unique about this gated development with sweeping views of Sandia Crest. The bigger than average lot sizes—most are about 80 feet wide by 110 feet deep—seem even larger because of a lack of grid block walls surrounding individual properties. Ocotillo Hills harkens back to Midwestern neighborhoods of yesteryear, where lawns ran together to form spacious parklike settings that pleased the eye as well as the kids lucky enough to live there.

“The homesites are large, so we’re doing away with the gridlock of walls,” says Bob Arguelles, Tiffany Homes’ director of sales and marketing and the fellow who convinced Arlan Collatz that this premier neighborhood was special enough to deserve fresh, new home designs and floor plans. “Instead of walls, the homes here will still have privacy with front and rear courtyards. The courtyard walls will keep barbecue grills, pets, and kids contained.”

The featured Parade home, the first to be built at Ocotillo Hills, is a two-story, 3,600-square-foot design that Collatz describes as “Southwest Tuscan fusion.” Design credit goes to Tiffany Homes’ in-house designer Kris Schiffer, as well as nationally renowned architects Bloodgood, Sharp, and Buster. The roomy model has four bedrooms, a home office with its own entry, a great room that opens to the kitchen, a loft recreation room, a roomy owner’s suite, and both formal and informal dining areas. It’s listed at $730,000, a price that includes standard amenities such as granite countertops, Pella windows, Karman cabinetry, GE Profile appliances, ceramic tile floors, and El Rey synthetic stucco. Southwest Tuscan influences include set-back garages that don’t compete visually with the home’s front elevation, as well as a blended roofline that combines both flat and pitched accents.

Ocotillo Hills sits squarely in the middle of Rio Rancho’s school district with Rio Rancho High School, Ernest Stapleton Elementary, and Eagle Ridge Middle School within walking distance.

Family homes have always been a priority for the Collatzes, parents to a 25-year-old son now studying architecture in Chicago. Over the past 26 years, they’ve developed nearly 30 subdivisions, never straying too far from the concept of neighborhood that was ingrained in Arlan Collatz as he grew up in Albuquerque’s Beverly Woods Addition near Winrock Mall. When his parents bought their Ed Snow home in 1955, it was on the easternmost fringes of the city.

“My parents still live in that home today,” Collatz says, “and the neighborhood has turned over about three times since then. The community and home are still desirable, still appreciating, and providing a high-quality lifestyle. It’s well located. In another 50 years, we want our homes and communities to be doing the same thing long after the people living there remember the names of the carpenters and masons.”

Indeed, there’s a family feel to this company, where some of the long-time employees such as production vice president Julio Dominguez have been with Collatz since the beginning. They’re working for a boss who demands—and gives—his best. Arlan Collatz came up through the same ranks that his dry wallers and electricians and carpenters are now climbing. If anything, he started even younger, forming a work ethic as a young teenager that is still strong today.

It was 36 years ago when Collatz, now 48, and an older brother started a lawn mowing service, walking up and down the streets of their Northeast Heights neighborhood to drum up business. The mowing led to other odd jobs. The boys painted fences, fixed gates, and trimmed trees before finally progressing into deck building and remodeling. By 1981, Collatz had formed Collatz Custom Construction, subcontracting carpentry work with some of Albuquerque’s biggest builders.

“I grew up as a hands-on tradesman,” he says, “and I learned the business end later. I’ve worked as a rough carpenter, a finish carpenter, and a mason—all self-taught. I understand what it takes to do these things correctly and why it’s important. My standards are rigid, my methods are time-honored, tested, and proven. No one will slip second-rate work under my nose.”

His marriage to Mary Alice in their early 20s proved fortuitous. As a daughter in a ranching family in northern New Mexico, she too had grown up working hard and conscientiously.

“I learned quickly that you do the job right the first time or it will cost you extra time and money,” she says. “I think that philosophy links directly now to our customers’ satisfaction.”

The two are a team when it comes to Tiffany Homes. Arlan describes himself as the visionary who comes up with the broad concepts of communities and home designs. Mary Alice is the realist who joined Tiffany full-time a decade ago as the chief financial officer. Even prior to that, however, she kept the company’s books, working nights at home after her daytime job ended. She’s brought a woman’s insight to the company’s home designs, including what employees affectionately call her super laundry rooms with space and plumbing to install two washers and two dryers.

“I hate doing laundry,” she says. “Now I can get it done in half the time.”

While Tiffany Homes now builds approximately 100 homes annually, Arlan Collatz took time off the management track to work as the superintendent of construction at the Parade model at Ocotillo Hills.

“I’m having a ball,” he says.

So too, it seems, are the company’s 30-some employees. It’s a great team, says Arguelles, the marketing and sales director who’s the new guy on the block, having just started this year.

“A hometown builder has a special care and concern about the community,” he says. “We’re serving a cause greater than self. We want to leave something to be proud of through the generations.”

Tiffany Homes keeps fresh with ever-changing projects, according to Arguelles. Ocotillo Hills will boast of some of the larger homes currently being built by Tiffany, with floor plans ranging from 1,900 to more than 4,000 square feet. Next up for the company, however, is a development with some of the smaller homes Tiffany is currently building. Sunset Villa, to break ground this winter in the South Valley’s Atrisco neighborhood, will mark the home builder’s journey into more affordable homes in one of Albuquerque’s oldest communities.

Freelance writer Jane Mahoney resides in a fixer-upper in Albuquerque’s South Valley and frequently writes about home builders and real estate issues for the Albuquerque Journal.