Grenadier Homes turns 35 this year. The company began with two neighbor kids from Toronto, Anthony Natale and John Egnatis, who met as five-year-olds skating on Grenadier Pond. Years later they moved to Dallas with a plan to build homes that improve the way people live. With Anthony as President and John as CEO, they continue to run the company together.
To mark the anniversary, we asked them what 35 years in the Dallas homebuilding industry has taught them.
Q: What does the 35th Anniversary of Grenadier Homes mean to you?
Anthony and John: “Thirty-five years represents more than half of our lives, and in many ways, our life’s work. What’s unique about what we do is that our work doesn’t disappear when the project is finished. It remains. We can drive through communities we created decades ago and see the structures we designed and built, the trees that have grown, and most importantly, the people who have made their lives there.
And none of it was created by one person. Each community represents the work of so many people: the people who imagined and planned it from the outset, those who managed the development and construction, the craftspeople who built it, and ultimately the homeowners who brought it to life.
What we’ve created isn’t something you simply look at. People live in it. It is our living art.”
Q: What do you believe has driven Grenadier’s success?
Anthony and John: “In our business, success is often defined financially. Maybe it’s surviving 20 years. Maybe it’s making it through a couple of real estate cycles and downturns. Maybe it’s how many homes you build or how large the company becomes.
While these things matter, our hope for Grenadier is different.
To us, success is about planting seeds for growth and continuity and creating something capable of continuing beyond the people who started it. We want to leave behind a company that becomes more distinctive and more demanding in its standards over time, rather than more ordinary as it grows. Size isn’t more important than the quality of the space. Profit isn’t the mission itself. The people who work at Grenadier and the people who live in the places we create need to stay at the top of the pyramid.
If Grenadier can preserve these ideas beyond its founders, that may ultimately be our greatest measure of success.”
Q: What have the ups and downs of the past 35 years taught you?
Anthony and John: “There are several ways you can react when things get difficult. The first is to fall into ‘Why me?’ mode. If you stay in that mindset too long, you’re probably not going to make it. The second response is better: ‘The market will come back. We’ll work hard, endure it, and recover.’ And usually, if you have a sound business and work hard enough, you will.
But there’s a third response that’s much more powerful. You can say: ‘This is a new challenge. It requires new thinking. And it’s our job as the builder and developer to figure it out.’
When you approach hard periods that way, you’re no longer just trying to survive until the old market comes back. You come out smarter, more adaptable, and with another layer of endurance you’ll need when the next cycle arrives. After 35 years, we’ve learned that you don’t get to choose the market, but you do get to choose your response to it.”
Q: What’s the secret ingredient behind a partnership this long?
John: “Find someone you like playing street hockey with. Then find a business you like together, and keep talking about both of those things together simultaneously, so you don’t get too serious and enjoy life.”
Anthony: “I’ve been with John longer than I’ve been married. So at the end of the day, we chose this path together. Why share a path? You can do things better and stronger. But we’ve also enjoyed it. There’s the fun part along the way. I don’t know that we went in thinking we’d be together for 55-plus years, but maybe that’s rarer air than a business surviving for 35 years.”
Q: What are your hopes for the next 35 years?
Anthony and John: “We want Grenadier to create a continuing legacy. Not simply a company that survives, but an organization with a purpose, one capable of preserving its mission and culture while continuing to adapt.
There’s a quote from Winston Churchill that has always been on our minds:
‘We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.’
That idea matters a great deal to us. We’re creating the setting where someone’s life happens. If we design that setting thoughtfully, the space begins to shape the lives of the people who live there. That’s why, when we think about another 35 years of Grenadier, we come back to where we started:
It is our living art.
And our hope is that the organization we leave behind will keep creating it long after we’re gone.”
Celebrate 35 years of intentional craftsmanship by visiting any of our communities across the Dallas area.
Want the full story? Read more about Grenadier’s history.
