Our History
In 1947, Dan and Fran Fortney were a young couple who recently relocated their manufactured housing business to Hagerstown, Maryland. Dan was an avid pilot and wanted to be close to the Hagerstown Airport— it was there that they found a perfect piece of land for Fortney Homes’ new sales center on the perimeter of the airfield which was also home to Fairchild, a Hagerstown-based aircraft manufacturer.
If you don’t hear airplanes, you’re not at Fortney’s.
Dan and Fran set up the new Fortney Homes office on Route 11 and, along the runway side of the property, Dan and Fran offered rental homes to Fairchild’s test pilots.
And so it goes…
Dan and Fran eventually had three children, including Denise, who was too afraid to fly in her father’s small airplanes, but was brave enough to give up her college teaching career at Hampton University in Virginia to come home and work in the family business.
In the early 1980s,
Denise met and married her husband Bill Pennington, who was a local banker. After Dan’s death in 1984, Fran ran the business for several years, but ultimately decided she would accept one of the many offers she’d received to sell it.
When Fran told her family, Denise and Bill knew it was important that Fortney Homes stay in the family, so they decided to purchase the business and continue Dan’s legacy.
Nearly 40 years later, the Pennington family is still running Fortney’s. Many of the residents who live in Fortney Estates today have been there for decades and watched the Pennington girls grow up. Dan believed you should do something you’re proud of and offering quality, affordable housing to the people of Hagerstown is something the entire family is proud to do.
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