The 7,500-pound bronze doors guarding the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City were carefully removed from their hinges and shipped to New Jersey for expert restoration. The stained-glass barrel vault laylight above the grand stair was meticulously disassembled and shipped to Los Angeles for detailed cleaning. 

The project to spruce up and restore the stunning entrance to the grand old seat of state government is one of many examples of craftsmanship that stand out among Prost Builders Inc.’s portfolio, which now covers seventy-five years of history. The Missouri-grown and family-run business started in Jefferson City in 1947, a fitting home base considering the company’s historic preservation work. 

When the State Capitol door framework and laylight structures were strengthened and walls were repainted, the doors and stained glass were fastidiously reinstalled just in time for the governor’s inauguration.  

Vaughn Prost, owner of Prost Builders Inc., is the eighth generation of French artisans in his family’s construction company. His father, Paul Prost, started the company with Roy Hanley in 1947, originally calling the firm Hanley-Prost. The construction and design-build company completed the Heisinger Bluffs Senior Living community project overlooking the Missouri River before Hanley retired in 1949. The company was renamed to Paul R. Prost Builder, with Paul as the sole owner. Soon after, Jay Prost, Paul’s younger brother, joined the company as a carpenter. 

Paul’s son, Vaughn Prost, received his undergraduate degree from the University of Missouri in civil engineering and then went on to Stanford University to earn his master’s in construction management and engineering, graduating in 1974. After graduating, he worked for a large engineering construction firm for three years and for a structural engineering design firm for three years in San Francisco.   

“I wasn’t making much money in San Francisco, so I decided to go to Saudi Arabia,” Vaughn said. “When we started, there was the Red Sea, the beach, the desert, and the mountains in the distance, twenty miles away. There wasn’t a rock on top of a rock. There wasn’t a drop of water. There was nothing there and they said, ‘Build it (a city) here,’ and that’s what we did.” 

Vaughn was in Saudi Arabia for nine years and three months with Parsons Corporation, building a new industrial city along the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia, just 300 kilometers north of Jeddah. It was a massive multi-billion-dollar project to construct the city now known as Yanbu, a gas and petroleum hub of some 70,000 people. 

When Vaughn left Saudi Arabia in 1990 and returned to Missouri, he began his first project with Prost Builders as the project manager of the addition and renovation of the Boone County Courthouse.  

“My favorite project was the historic Boone County Courthouse,” he said. “I guess one of your first projects is your sweetest one.” 

Jay was phased out of the firm in 1993 after receiving a cancer diagnosis, leaving Vaughn to manage Prost Builders, then one of the largest general contractors in mid-Missouri. The firm’s historic renovation and restoration work includes other high-profile projects, one of which was the restoration of Mark Twain’s boyhood home in Hannibal. At any given time, the firm has about twelve multi-million dollar projects going, and last year completed about roughly $60 million in construction work. 

In Columbia alone, Prost Builders Inc. has completed a litany of projects for the University of Missouri, Columbia College, Stephens College, and the city of Columbia. The list includes the exterior renovation and restoration of the Jesse Hall dome, stripping all of the lead-based paint off the dome and repainting it, plus renovating the windows and some of the structure’s galvanized steel. 

The company also installed two new gas turbines and built an addition onto MU’s power plant. Prost Builders also built Delaney Hall, the dining facility for Columbia College. 

“We’re very proud of our craftsmen because it takes them to build a business. We’re not just subcontracting everything out,” Vaughn said. “We have a lot of craftsmen on our staff which helps us to control the quality and control the schedule of our projects. Our ability to self-perform is one thing that distinguishes us from a lot of other contractors, especially the ones that come in from St. Louis and Kansas City.” 

Some of Prosts’s recent projects include doubling the surgery capacity for the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center with six new operating rooms and twenty-four new patient rooms. The firm also completed a major addition to the College of Veterinary Medicine, as well as the new EquipmentShare technology building at the Lake of the Woods exit. 

One of its biggest projects is the $40 million renovation of the fourteen-story Jefferson State Office building that was constructed in the 1950s. Another recent, local project is the construction of the Love Columbia housing facility off College Avene and a new air traffic control tower for the Jefferson City Airport.  

“We’re proud of our craftsman,” Vaughn repeated. “Some of them started with us as an apprentice and then they retired with us. I have one partner who worked for my grandfather, worked for my father, worked for my uncle, and worked for me during his forty-year career.”  

Timeline

• 1946 – Paul Prost came to Jefferson City 
• 1947- Paul partnered with Roy Hanley to start Hanley-Prost in Jefferson City 
• 1949 – Hanley retired. The company was renamed Paul R. Prost Builder 
• 1951 – Jay Prost joined the company as a carpenter 
• 1959 – Paul relocated his family for four years to Connecticut to build seminaries, leaving Jay to manage the firm 
• 1963 – Paul R. Prost Builder opened a branch in Columbia after Paul and his family moved back to Missouri 
• 1970 – The company was renamed to Prost Builders Inc. 
• 1974 – Vaughn graduated from Stanford University with a master’s in construction management and engineering 
• 1980 – Vaughn leaves the U.S. to help build the city of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia 
• 1986 – Paul retired, leaving Jay to run the firm 
• 1990 – Vaughn came back to the U.S. to join Prost Builders 
• 1993 – Vaughn assumed operations of the company