JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: Home Builder L.J. Krenek

In 1979 I met a home builder in Kingwood. He was a man in his late 50s at the time. He had a slight colorful accent from a country in Eastern Europe. He was a man who knew how to get things done, how to build homes people wanted to buy. A client of mine bought a piece of land and a business from this outstanding businessman. His name was L.J. Krenek.

Most people in Kingwood called him “LJ” and that’s what I called him. In my dealings with him, I found him to be highly intelligent with a great mind for business. In home building he had to be sharp to stay in the business and to make money at it. He helped me understand the benefits of building spec houses versus building a house “to suit” a particular buyer. Building a spec house meant taking on more financial risk to build the house on the hopes that it would garner the price a man needed to pay his bills and make a profit. Building a house to suit meant agreeing to build the house that the buyer wanted, with all their requirements for doing so. That house had a lot more headaches than the house that was built on speculation. But that spec house had a lot fewer headaches.

As an example, a home buyer would pick out a specific color they wanted a particular room to be, using a paint chip that was maybe an inch square. Then once that room got painted, they would see that it did not look the way they thought it was going to look. Then came the inevitable “I want to change the color to something lighter ” (or darker, or whatever). That’s when as a home builder you have to get the buyer to sign a Change Order with the additional costs, or you would eat that loss on the buyer’s bad decision.

LJ had a few sayings that I loved hearing him say. “Cash is King,” he would say. While others bought real estate using debt and ending up paying interest rates that made the carrying costs go sky high, LJ would buy great pieces with cash. He was right about Cash being King, and it goes hand in hand with the old “money talks, BS walks.”

LJ knew that a home builder had to ride herd over those who did the work for him. He had to get value for his money. He couldn’t let contractors eat up his profit by wasting materials, or by failing to stay on schedule. He found and used good workers, and that was a key to his success.

LJ  had a variety of sayings and he had smart ways of doing things. LJ also knew that as a sole businessman he had to keep his financial ship tight, and he could only support so many workers. “One dog can only support so many fleas,” he once told me. I respected his skills and learned a great deal about home building and investing in real estate from him. I was a good listener and he knew how much I respected his insights. I wish young people would do more of that now.

I decided recently I wanted to tell readers about LJ Krenek, so I went looking for him and found his obituary. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 86. That means he was born four years before my Dad, who was born in 1926. My Dad passed away in 1971, so I suspect my interactions with LJ in the late 1970s and early 1980s gave me a chance to garner wisdoms from a man of my Dad’s generation.

I started thinking “someone ought to write something nice about LJ Krenek,” and that someone is me. Here’s to you, LJ! Cash is King!