Built to be judged in ten years, not at handover
A custom house is judged the winter after you move in, and every winter after. Drawings respected, schedule kept, and a builder who still answers the phone in year three.
We pride ourselves on maintaining a boutique feel, ensuring our intimate involvement and personalized approach throughout the collaborative design and construction process.
The work
What we take on
New houses, estates and renovations, each carried from pre-construction pricing through closeout.
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Custom homes and estates
Architecturally driven houses from your drawings or ours, estimated line by line before the contract and built to those drawings, details and specifications.
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Whole-house renovation and restoration
Taking an older house down to what is worth keeping and rebuilding around it, with the same estimating, schedule and superintendent as a new build.
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Design-build with your architect
In the room from schematic design, so cost and buildability are settled on paper and the architect’s intent survives the site.
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Pre-construction planning
Site evaluation, plan development, trade-partner bids, allowances and a schedule, so what you sign is a real number and a real calendar.
Selected projects
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Hollywood Bungalow
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English Storybook
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Westport Colonial
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Monumental Manor
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Mid-Century Modern
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New England Estate
A site walk, and a straight answer about scope, budget and time
The builder
Ted Thompson
President
The person to ask about the number, the schedule, the drawings and who will be on site every day.
How it goes
Pre-construction to closeout
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Pre-construction
The site, the drawings, bids from the trades, allowances set where selections actually land, and a plain explanation of fixed price versus cost-plus. Nothing is signed until the number is real.
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Construction
A superintendent on site, a schedule with dates, regular updates against it, and every change order priced in writing before the work happens. A delay you understand is a different thing from one nobody explained.
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Closeout and warranty
Systems tested, the punch list walked and closed, documentation handed over, and a warranty backed by the people who built the house rather than a claims processor.
What owners ask first
Fixed price or cost-plus?
Either can be right. Fixed price means the builder bids everything and gives you one number including the fee; cost-plus means actual cost plus a fixed fee or a percentage, with the books open. Ask any builder to explain both, and which they recommend for your house and why.
Why do custom home budgets creep?
Allowances. The placeholder budgets for lighting, appliances, fixtures, cabinets, tile and flooring are often set low to win the job, and every selection then arrives as a change order. Ask how allowances were set and what similar houses actually spent.
Who is actually on site every day?
Ask for a name. A dedicated superintendent who is on the project for its whole duration, backed by trade partners the builder has used before, is what a clean, on-schedule site looks like. If the answer is the owner and a phone, ask again.
What happens after we move in?
A warranty, and someone who answers it. The common structure is one year on materials and workmanship, two on mechanical, electrical and plumbing, ten on structure. Ask who takes the call in year three, and whether it is the people who built the house.
Tell us about the house
A first conversation is a walk through the site or the house you have and a look at what you have drawn or imagined. It commits you to nothing.