Ivanhoe's building tradition spans four generations. It began with Jacob Shapiro, who immigrated to Michigan from Europe and built and managed apartment communities in the city of Detroit. His son, Harry Shapiro, extended that expertise into the Detroit suburbs, building single-family homes and apartment communities in Southfield and Bloomfield Hills. The tradition and knowledge then passed to Gary Shapiro, who built the first homes under the Ivanhoe name in 1977. Through the 1980s, '90s, and 2000s, as President of Ivanhoe-Huntley Homes, Gary developed and built a majority of West Bloomfield's current housing stock and operated Ivanhoe-Huntley as Michigan's largest private homebuilder, working across nearly all of metro Detroit's suburbs. The fourth generation joined in 2017, when Jacob Shapiro came on full time after practicing law in Chicago. He has since led Ivanhoe's current expansion of joint venture development projects and brought new efficiency to its property management operations.
Across four generations, that inherited tradition and knowledge has grown into a full scope of expertise in real estate entitlement, development, construction, and property management, where Ivanhoe and its affiliates have expanded their presence in metro Detroit — earning national recognition for environmental design, land planning, and community development achievements.
Today, Ivanhoe has entitled, developed, and built over 10,000 single-family and multifamily units along with commercial properties, and manages thousands of apartment units across southeast Michigan.
