Three years after acquisition, CraftMaster changes name to Mungo Homes

A sign outside the CraftMaster office that’s now Mungo Homes’ Richmond outpost. (Jonathan Spiers photos)

Three years after it was sold to an out-of-town peer, Richmond-area builder CraftMaster Homes has assumed the name of its purchaser, an affiliate of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

CraftMaster is now Mungo Homes, the S.C.-based builder that acquired the two-decade-old firm in 2021.

Tim Parent

Since the deal closed that July, CraftMaster had been continuing doing business under its name with the tagline, “a Mungo Homes company.” The decision to fully change the name to Mungo was announced earlier this month.

“With what Mungo can do for us and how amazing they’ve been for our employees…we wanted to truly be a part of the Mungo family and have the Mungo name,” said Tim Parent, market president of Mungo’s Richmond office.

The name change comes a year after Jeff Tunstall, CraftMaster’s owner and president at the time of the sale, parted ways with the company after 22 years at CraftMaster’s helm.

Tunstall, who remains active locally in land development, declined to comment on the split when reached Monday. He said he parted ways with the company in March 2023.

Parent joined CraftMaster five years ago as general manager and was appointed by Mungo as market president in April 2023. He acknowledged Tunstall’s departure and contributions to CraftMaster, which Tunstall acquired from founder Lloyd Poe in 2016.

“He built a great company for us,” Parent said of Tunstall, whose custom-home offshoot, PerrinCrest Custom Homes, was included in the 2021 sale and also is now under the Mungo brand.

Mungo signage has been added at the old CraftMaster office in Crown Colony office park in Atlee.

Tunstall has shifted focus to his Reesebrooks land development firm that he started in 2018. Reesebrooks developed the Cottages at Viniterra, a 55-and-up community beside New Kent Winery where Mungo is building and selling homes. Tunstall said the lots were previously CraftMaster’s and carried over in the sale to Mungo.

Mungo also is active in 15 other communities in the region, including Reed Marsh in Goochland, and the Discovery Ridge townhomes and forthcoming Arcadia development in Henrico. It’s also active in King William County and in Chesterfield at Magnolia Green, Harpers Mill, RounTrey and the Cosby Village area.

Parent said Mungo is in growth mode locally and looking to extend its reach across more of the Richmond market, where the company anticipates about 150 closings this year. Parent said the company’s local revenue totaled $70 million last year and is on track to reach $80 million this year.

Local home prices range from the low $300,000s to nearly $700,000, with an average sale price of $557,000, according to the company. Parent said its price points in Richmond would remain higher than Mungo’s average nationally, though he noted that its homes in McCauley Park in King William will be in the mid-$200,000s.

A Mungo house planned for Reed Marsh in Goochland. (Photo courtesy Mungo Homes)

Parent said Mungo also is signed on to be the primary builder at Arcadia, the massive 800-home development in eastern Henrico planned by East West Communities. Parent said Mungo will build the bulk of the homes, including the 20 homes allotted for lower-income households through an arrangement with the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust.

Parent said a small portion of the market-rate homes at Arcadia would be sold to another builder that has yet to be named.

“We’re lucky to be able to still build some of the same product we were building before, but now we have a lot more to choose from, and we have the opportunity to work on some affordable projects,” said Parent, who serves on Henrico’s Housing Advisory Committee and was on hand for the county’s announcement last week of a new housing trust fund to promote housing affordability.

A Mungo Homes associate displays a yard sign on Instagram to announce the name change. (Screenshot)

“Our price point’s still going to remain higher, because the cost of living and lots are a little more expensive here than they are in most of the other markets that we build in,” he said. “But when you look at what we were doing before in the market…we’re really able (now) to open up some of the product line that we have to offer.”

As for the name change, Parent said the rebranding involved would be minimal, noting similarities between CraftMaster’s and Mungo’s logos.

“The nice thing is that the Mungo Homes logo has changed over to what our blue was for CraftMaster, so the colors are an easy change for us,” he said. “The logo’s changed, the name’s changed, but other than that, there’s not a whole lot else changing.”

Mungo’s Richmond office is CraftMaster’s old one at 8253 Crown Colony Parkway, across Chamberlayne Road in Atlee from Rutland Grove, where CraftMaster built homes alongside HHHunt Homes. The office totals 37 employees, which Parent expects to grow along with Mungo’s reach.

Active in the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia, Mungo Homes is in its 70th year and is part of Berkshire Hathaway’s Clayton Properties Group under the Buffett conglomerate’s Clayton Homes brand. Clayton Properties acquired Mungo in 2018.