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Jirair Hovnanian, N.J. Home Builder, NAHB Life Director, Dies at 80
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Jirair Hovnanian | Jirair S. Hovnanian, founder of the Mount Laurel, N.J.-based J.S. Hovnanian and Sons, died on Aug. 13 soon after watching members of his company build a home on ABC’s popular reality show, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” He was 80.
Hovnanian was active in building issues and supported many charitable organizations, and his company built more than 6,000 homes in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties in South Jersey during the past four decades.
Hovnanian started J.S. Hovnanian and Sons in 1964 after splitting from a company he started with his three brothers. One of those brothers, Kevork Hovnanian, started the company that eventually became Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., a publicly traded company based in Red Bank, N.J.
Jirair Hovnanian was a former president of the Builders League of South Jersey. He also served as president of the New Jersey Builders Association from 1974 to 1975 — when the New Jersey Uniform Building Code and the Municipal Land Use laws were adopted. In 2006, Hovnanian was inducted into the Builders League’s Hall of Fame.
He was also a life director at NAHB.
Hovnanian was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, where his father, Stepan K. Hovnanian, an Armenian refugee who fled to Iraq in 1915, was a builder in Baghdad.
Hovnanian came to the United States in 1948 and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1952.
He and his brothers formed Hovnanian Brothers Corp. in 1959 and built homes in New Jersey before starting separate companies about five years later.
In 2006, Hovnanian received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for contributions to America by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations Inc.
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