Introduction to Del Webb

Del Webb was born in 1899 in Fresno, CA. He learned carpentry and had a passion for baseball at a very early age. Before completing high school, his privileged life changed as his father’s company ran into financial problems and he was forced to quit school and become a carpenter’s apprentice.

Baseball, however, was still the driving force in his life and he supplemented his income as a semi-pro ballplayer. At the age of 28 he contracted typhoid fever, an event that changed the course of his life. He and his wife moved to Phoenix, AZ, for his recuperation, giving up the idea of professional baseball and pouring his talents into carpentry. The rest is history! A year later, in 1928, he started his own company. By the late 1930s his contracting business was one of the largest in AZ and he was offered numerous defense contracts. Several called for building entire cities, foreshadowing the development work that would make Del Webb famous. These projects introduced him to some very influential people, e.g., Howard Hughes, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Barry and Robert Goldwater. In 1945 he was able to put his money where his heart was and, with a partner, purchased the New York Yankees. In January 1960, an age-restricted community designed exclusively for active adults was opened and Sun City was born. Today there are over 30 such communities under the Del Webb umbrella and more are planned. Del Webb also built factories, hotels, motor-hotels, hos pitals, World’s Fair exhibits, baseball stadiums and the famous Madison Square Garden in New York City. Del Webb died on July 4, 1974. He will long be remembered for his most famous projects—the Sun Cities.

Webb Vision

The Del Webb Corporation was one of Arizona’s largest general contractors at mid twentieth century. The company built three military bases and a massive Japanese American internment camp in Arizona during World War II. In the postwar years, Del Webb constructed shopping centers, museums, multi-generational housing developments, industrial parks, hospitals, parks, and two large Las Vegas resorts.

But in 1960, Delbert E. Webb, the founder of the corporation, took his organization in an entirely new direction, building communities for active senior citizens. The corporation purchased thousands of acres in the desert northwest of Phoenix to build Sun City, a place for those over age 45 to live, learn, exercise, and remain active and involved. The company gambled by focusing on twenty percent of the real estate market (senior citizens) and de-emphasizing the other eighty percent. This revolutionary concept of an active adult community was an instant success.