William Lyon made his fortune following the freeways. Wherever the roads ran, that’s where the Air Force general-turned-homebuilder would mobilize construction crews, eventually building much of Orange County among many projects across the Southwestern U.S.
Lyon, one of Orange County’s wealthiest and most influential residents, died Friday, May 22 at his hilltop estate in Coto de Caza, his son Bill H. Lyon said. He was 97.
His son said he died peacefully of natural causes at his home and that COVID-19 was not a factor in his death.
The General
The General, as he was known because of his stint as a major general and chief of the Air Force Reserves, continued to show up at the offices of the company that bore his name until about two years ago.
His eponymous homebuilding firm, which he founded with his father and brother in the 1950s, stopped operating under the name William Lyon Homes in February when it merged with Taylor Morrison. The Arizona-based homebuilder does, however, plan to retain the William Lyon Signature brand for a line of luxury homes.
“It’s the end of an era — in a lot of ways,” Bill H. Lyon said.
In addition to building more than 100,000 homes in California, Arizona and Nevada, the beefy, 6-foot-tall businessman donated millions to charities, was a co-founder of the powerful GOP group, the New Majority, and served as commanding general of the U.S. Air Force Reserve.
He made the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in the late 1980s. The Orange County Business Journal estimated his net worth at $675 million in 2005 – the year before the real estate market slump caused the value of his company’s assets to plummet.
Lyon lived with his wife of 48 years, Willa Dean, in a half-acre colonial mansion on a 134-acre estate in Coto de Caza. They had five children.
Life-long love of flying
Born March 9, 1923, in Los Angeles, Lyon fell in love with flying at 16 after a $1 flight in Culver City. He attended the University of Southern California and the Dallas Aviation School and Air College before entering the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943.
Lyon served as a pilot in World War II but didn’t see action until Korea, where he flew 75 combat missions in C-46 and C-47 transport planes.
He returned to Orange County in 1953, and in 1954 he joined his father and brother in founding Luxury Homes in Fullerton.
The official account says William Lyon and his older brother, Leon, founded the small Orange County homebuilding firm to build houses for soldiers returning from the Korean War. An unofficial version – as told by his son – was that Lyon’s father, Depression-era builder and Kahlua importer Al Lyon, wanted to get him away from the risky business of flying airplanes.
So the veteran combat and commercial air pilot switched his focus to the first of several homebuilding companies he would run over the next 63 years.
Lyon sold Luxury Homes to American Standard, a plumbing fixtures company, in 1968, and became vice president in charge of their real estate division, his son said. In 1971, he repurchased American Standard’s California assets and started what became The William Lyon Co., headquartered in Newport Beach.
In 1974, he returned to active duty to serve as Chief of the Air Force Reserve until 1978.
In 1981, Lyon joined George Argyros in paying $61.5 million for AirCal, a troubled airline. Five years later, the two sold the airline for $225 million.
Up, down and up again
He weathered an up-and-down real estate market, including a 1990s recession that forced his company to make layoffs. His firm merged with Newport Beach-based Presley Development Co. in 1987. Presley later purchased all the assets of William Lyon Homes, then a separate company, and adopted the William Lyon Homes name.
William Lyon Homes saw profits soar from $50 million in 2001 to almost $191 million in 2005, profits that generated an $11.2 million in annual bonus for Lyon.
As the company’s chief shareholder, Lyon took the firm private in July 2006, paying an estimated $275 million to buy up outstanding shares. The family took the company public again in 2013.
Lyon is credited with building more than 100,000 homes in six Western U.S. states over the course of his career, a statistic that hasn’t been updated in about a decade.
“He was one of the great homebuilders,” said Tony Moiso, Rancho Mission Viejo’s chairman. “His mark on Southern California, especially Orange County, is hard to match. He has impacted many, many thousands of lives who probably will never meet him, never knew anything about him. But he impacted those lives very positively.”
Builder Magazine ranked William Lyon Homes as the nation’s 19-biggest homebuilding company in 2019, it’s most recent list, after building 4,051 housing units last year. The company built 4,186 units in 2018 and generated more than $2 billion in gross revenues.
“He’s a giant in our community. He’s built a name, he’s built neighborhoods, he’s built trust and discipline,” said John McManus, Builder Magazine’s editor. “His land acumen, his focus on homebuyers, his approaches to accessing capital, and his fiercely entrepreneurial spirit made his company a kind of academy for a couple of generations of homebuilding’s leaders.”
Community titan
Aside from business activities, Lyon was a generous donor to political and charitable causes. He was a co-founder of the New Majority, an influential group of local GOP leaders.
As chairman of the Orangewood Children’s Foundation, Lyon led a fundraising campaign that collected $8 million for a new emergency shelter for abused and neglected children. He also was a past chairman and donor to the Orange County Performing Arts Center and a past chairman of the Orange County Boy Scouts Council. He was a leading philanthropist as well for such causes as the Reagan presidential library.
Lyon was one of the three most influential men in Orange County, along with Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren and South Coast Plaza developer Henry Segerstrom, said Larry Higby, a former Nixon White House aide who co-founded the New Majority in 1999 with Lyon, Argyros, Bren and others.
“Not only was he a community developer, but equally important, he was a community leader,” Higby said of Lyon. “Bill was one of those unique guys who doesn’t just write a check. He gets involved, which is why he makes such an impact.”
A longtime car aficionado, Lyon began amassing a collection of 100 vintage and classic cars in 1961 with the purchase of a 12-cylinder 1935 Packard. Others in his car “museum,” as he called it included a 1908 Bugatti, several Duesenbergs and an armor-plated 1939 Packard owned by former Mexican President Lazaro Cárdenas.
His love for flying continued throughout his life. More recently he was involved in the development of an aviation museum next to John Wayne Airport, and in spring 2008, he flew a vintage B-17 bomber to Washington, D.C., to take part in a flyover as part of a memorial for fallen airmen.
Lyon is survived by his wife, Willa Dean; daughters Susan Isola and Christine Rhoades; stepdaughter Marcia Stone; son, Bill H. Lyon; seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by a son, Byron Russell.
There will be private services for the family with a celebration of life to follow in the coming months. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Orangewood Foundation at orangewoodfoundation.org.
Former Register reporters Tom Berg, Randy Youngman and Mathew Padilla contributed to this report.
