A modest house set on an equally modest lot in tiny Pearl River, N.Y., north of New York City, was built in the early 1900s by Fred L. Holt, founder of what became Holt Construction Corp. It still is headquarters for the contracting firm that his grandson now leads.
Jack Holt was 28 when he took over the family business in 1974. Under his father, Fred A. Holt, the company’s focus had shifted from premanufactured homes to commercial and industrial projects, with the younger Holt diversifying it further by adding hospitals, dams, airports and baseball stadiums. It ranks among ENR’s Top 400 Contractors for 2021, with reported construction revenue of $216 million in 2020, including $194.3 million in New York and New Jersey.