James “Win” Pratt III
* Title: President of Pratt and Associates* Age: 40Education: Graduate of Baylor School in 1994, and the University of Tennessee in 1998* Career: Win and his father started Pratt and Associates and started developing lots and building homes in 1999* Personal: Married with three children and two step childrenAbout Pratt Homes* Headquarters: Red Bank* Started: 1999* Owners: James and Win Pratt* Staff: 30 employees* 2016 sales: Projected to sell about 150 lots* Projects: The company has developed, bought or sold lots in about 75 subdivisions and last December
Win Pratt thought he wanted to be a doctor when he studied biology at the University of Tennessee in the 1990. But when his applications for medical school failed to land him a spot, his father had another offer.
Pratt’s father, James, owned Bradley Propane in Cleveland, Tenn., at the time, and he used part of his business earnings to buy 29 ares in Red Bank off of Brownstown Road to try his hand at real estate development. The elder Pratt agreed to hire Win to help prepare and sell the lots in what developed into the Traditions subdivision. Win got his real estate license, put on his work boots and has never looked back.
“I immediately liked it because I got to be outside, not stuck in an office, and I got to see the progress on what we were working one every day,” the younger Pratt recalls.
A decade and a half later, Win Pratt does little of the outdoors, hands-on work that he began doing out of college. But he says he still loves overseeing what has grown into Chattanooga’s biggest home building and development company. Since its start in 1999, when it sold only three houses, Pratt Homes has developed or sold more than 1,000 houses in nearly 75 subdivisions.