BY ROBBIE WHELAN AND DAWN WOTAPKA

One of the fattest executive-pay packages last year went to the chief of a company in an unlikely industry: home building.

Even as home prices continued to fall industrywide and the number of new houses under construction kept sinking, Paul Saville, the chief executive of NVR Inc., received total 2010 compensation valued at nearly $31 million, according to NVR's proxy statement.

That made Mr. Saville, whose compensation was mostly in stock and option awards, the highest-paid executive in the home-building sector and among the highest paid public-company CEOs overall. In addition, he reaped a gain of $21.7 million from exercising ...