Word: shelled
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...small to be dangerous, but they make a loud rat-a-tat-tat sound. To the space traveler, the chief harm that they can do is psychological. So Whipple suggests that the nerves of spacemen be shielded from this hazard by surrounding their capsule by a thin metal shell that wi!! intercept the speeding dust particles but will not transmit to the capsule the unnerving sounds that they make...
...harried house hunters in 21 states across the southern tier of the U.S., the real estate ads seemed too good to be true: "Jim Walter Homes. Priced from $1,395. Nothing Down, 100% Financing!" But true they were. The houses were shell homes-frame dwellings completely finished on the outside, but with plumbing, heating, wiring and interior decorating left as unfinished business for the enterprising buyer. So enticing have they proved that, despite a general housing slump this year, the Jim Walter Corp., the biggest U.S. builder specializing in finish-your-own houses, last week reported earnings...
...five short years the Jim Walter Corp. has climbed into the No. 2 spot among the nation's builders of homes finished or unfinished (trailing only National Homes), built and sold nearly 14,000 in its last fiscal year. More remarkably, since shell homes do not qualify for FHA or veterans' mortgages, the Jim Walter Corp. financed and insured most of its house sales itself, often with no money down, only the pledge of the land (which the buyer must own outright) against default. The company's assets have grown from...
...Best Risks. The man behind the phenomenal growth of the company is a lanky, cigar-smoking Florida salesman just turned 38. Jim Walter was a truck driver in 1946, when he saw a newspaper ad for a shell home for $1,195. It looked like a bargain, and he borrowed the money to buy it. It also looked like a good business, and he borrowed some more to go into partnership with the builder, O. L. Davenport. In 1948 he bought out Davenport for $49,000 and struck out on his own, finally in 1955 was big enough to form...
Today Walter offers some 45 different styles of shell houses, employs 530 three-to five-man crews of subcontractors, who put up the shell on the home buyer's plot. Walter houses sell for $1,095 to $3,495 depending on size and style, and he keeps costs down by paying his builders a fixed fee per house, supplying everything except lumber for the construction from his own Dixie Building Supplies Inc. Last year Walter cleared an average of $1,000 profit on every house he built, on an average sales price of only $2,500. Even...