ABOUT – Cesery Companies of Jacksonville Florida, Residential Commercial Development

ABOUT CESERY COMPANIES

Cesery Companies develops and manages residential and commercial properties, including some of Jacksonville’s most exciting new lifestyle concepts. The Cesery name has been a part of the city’s growth for more than a century, and today, the fusion of a third generation continues to shape the city’s future, from the resoration of historic and architecturally significant structures to the creation of new, modern spaces in which to live and work.

Developer & General Contractor / Commercial & Residential

CHANGING THE FACE OF JACKSONVILLE'S URBAN CORE

The Cesery Companies include Wm. R. Cesery Co. Realtor, a real estate company, and Cesery Properties Inc., a certified general contracting company. Our activities range from buying land and acquiring land entitlements, to purchasing and renovating existing buildings. We have developed new retail, office/warehouse and mixed use projects and renovated buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Cesery Companies handles the acquisition, development and leasing of all of their properties in-house.

The brother and sister team of Barbara and Bill Cesery call themselves “boutique urban developers.” As evidenced by their remarkable growth and ongoing success throughout Northeast Florida. The dynamic duo share an innate ability to gauge the present and envision the future while keeping their remarkable portfolio of diverse projects and aquisitions currently under development.

Barbara H. Cesery

Barbara H. Cesery enjoyed a successful career as both a real estate broker and an acclaimed artist in New York City. A graduate of Vassar College with a B.A. in political science, she earned a Masters Degree at New York University in Painting and Art History, later teaching art as well as participating as a shown artist in the New York art scene.

William R. Cesery Jr.

William R. Cesery, Jr., graduated from the University of Florida College of Building Construction and joined the company in 1976. He has been a certified general contractor since 1975 and a registered real estate broker since 1982.

HISTORY OF THE CESERY COMPANIES

The Cesery FAMILY name has been a part of Jacksonville's growth for more than a century.

The fusion of a third generation of Cesery development continues to shape the city’s future, from the restoration of historic and architecturally significant structures to the creation of new, modern spaces in which to live and work.

The Cesery siblings are steeped in the history of Jacksonville. They grew up hearing stories of their grandfather, Angelo Cesery, and his role in the rebirth of the City of Jacksonville following the great fire of 1901. After immigrating to Jacksonville from Italy at the turn of the century, Angelo Cesery founded a plaster and tile company, designing and installing much of the ornamental exterior and interior design work still evident in some of Jacksonville’s oldest buildings, including the old downtown Morocco Temple Building, and the St. James Building, what is now City Hall.

Established in the early years of the 20th century by Angelo Cesery, the company began as an ornamental plaster, tile and terrazzo contractor, working on some of Jacksonville’s most prominent buildings. Angelo’s son, William R. Cesery Sr., founded his construction business after World War II, going on to develop the once-rural Arlington area east of downtown. Through the 1960s, the company built more than 2,000 homes and hundreds of apartments in Arlington, adding commercial projects in the decades that followed.

Angelo’s son, William R. Cesery Sr. followed in his pioneering father’s footsteps, beginning his career in quality construction and development in the late 1940’s. William Sr. saw the potential in a wooded area called Arlington and, back in 1951, began Arlington’s boom with the Lake Lucina subdivision, which was accessed by a road he built and named Cesery Boulevard, now one of Jacksonville’s main thoroughfares. William R. Cesery Sr. was destined to to build over 2000 homes and hundreds of apartments in Arlington, including the first “garden apartments” in Jacksonville. He established Wm R. Cesery Co., Inc. in 1959 and his son William R. Cesery Jr. (Bill) joined the successful real estate brokerage company in 1976. A graduate of the University of Florida College of Building Construction, William R. Cesery Jr. has been a certified general contractor since 1975 and a licensed real estate broker since 1982.