The editors of this magazine meet a lot of custom builders, and we have long been impressed by how much they seem to enjoy their work. But then again, why shouldn’t they? Shelter answers a fundamental human need, and custom builders provide shelter in its most elaborate and highly developed form. Most builders who gravitate toward this calling do so not only because they are able to master its complexities, but also because they want to craft that sort of product. Custom builders care deeply about design, craftsmanship, and performance. For Lance Armstrong it may not be about the bike, but for custom builders, to a substantial degree, it is about the house.
But the market is competitive, the nature of most custom homes is determined more by owners and architects than by builders, and at the moment, our national economy is not firing on all cylinders. Given those conditions, are custom builders building the houses they really want to build? We put the question to a handful of our readers—successful custom builders doing various types of work in different markets around the country—and got a range of complex and thoughtful answers. Everyone we asked replied with at least a qualified “yes.” But custom builders are an individualistic and reflective lot. The reasons why they like what they build vary, as do the ways in which they believe their houses could be improved.
Asked if he is satisfied with the houses he is building, Austin, Texas-based builder Brian Bailey pauses for only a moment before replying, “I’d have to say ‘yes,’ because it’s a privilege any time there are houses out there to be built.” With a local economy moving in slow motion, Bailey is pleased to report that his own flow of work remains relatively healthy. “We’re not seeing the frequency and number of projects we were seeing five years ago,” he says, but the variety that keeps him interested is still there. “We’re still fortunate to have some major, significant projects”—including one that tops out at 40,000 square feet—but Bailey’s smaller projects range all the way down to 2,100 square feet. Bailey is also excited about the emerging market of aging baby boomers, and the way floor plans are evolving to respond to their needs. Staying on top of a constantly developing field is what gets Bailey out of bed in the morning, and building custom homes allows him to track trends on a person-to-person basis. “I love change,” he says. “It pushes you to improve.” Cambridge, Mass., builder Peter Bensley also gets a charge from the variety of projects available in an active market with forward-looking clients and top-notch architects. “I like projects that take some thought, that aren’t cookie-cutter,” he says. Business was slow enough last fall that Bensley took on a project he otherwise would have rejected—“what I would really call a McMansion,” he says: long on square footage, short on architectural detail, and not much fun to build. But the slump proved short-lived, and Bensley is now building houses that he finds more rewarding. “Lately we’ve been doing more contemporary work, which I find really interesting,” he says. One current project features a steel moment frame, glass curtain walls, lots of curves, and an open-pit fireplace surrounded by three massive granite slabs. To increase his selection of such challenging projects, Bensley has mapped out a broader swath of geography than most builders, traveling up to 90 minutes from his office for the right job. “For me it means going where the projects are.”
One kind of project remains frustratingly elusive. “I’ve been trying to do some green building for the last 10 years,” Bensley says. But even owners who show interest at first always seem to choose the granite counter-tops over the geothermal heat pump. “Except for small things—adding a little insulation—I haven’t been able to convince anyone.” A related issue, the increasing size of houses, leaves Bensley with mixed feelings. “I’m amazed at how big houses are, yet so many of my clients seem to need that space.” Even those who want a really big house, he says, “seem to fit right into it.” Bensley would rather see the same money going toward smaller, more detailed houses, what he calls “little gems.” But a smaller house at the same square-foot cost? “I certainly have mixed feelings about that.”
Milwaukee-area design/build architect Alan Freysinger is also enthusiastic about the houses he is building. And well he should be; demand for high-end projects remains strong, and Freysinger’s firm designs virtually all the houses it builds. But with some single-family projects topping the 10,000-square-foot mark, Freysinger, too, has begun to feel uneasy about the quantity of resources they consume. “There are times we shake our heads and ask, ‘Is there anyone who needs this much space?’” To Freysinger, the driving force behind the trend toward huge houses can be summed up in one word: “Consumerism, which is just rampant in our society. It’s the SUV concept.” As an architect, Freysinger takes satisfaction in his consultative role—“I try to steer them toward more detail and less volume,” he says—and remains philosophical. “The reality is, what we’re building is not a house for us; it’s a house for them. Is it what I would want? Maybe not. But is it what they want? Yes.” Chip Vaughn’s business gives him a slightly different perspective. Working in the prosperous Main Line area outside Philadelphia, Vaughn buys land, works with an architect to design a model home, and then builds that plan—customized to the buyer’s taste—to order. He says the phenomenon of ever-increasing house size reflects the rising cost of buildable land. Vaughn likes to keep his developed-lot cost at about 30 percent of the sale price of his houses. And with lots running well into the six figures, that works out to a lot of square footage, even in a highly detailed house. “We don’t have any trouble selling 5,700-square-foot houses that are going to end up costing $2 million apiece,” he says. That may be too much house, even for those who can afford to buy it, Vaughn says. “It’s a big house that people come in and want to make even bigger, and I’m wondering where that is going to end. I do like what I’m building, but I can say philosophically that we’re not headed in the right direction.” Vaughn thinks that 3,800 square feet would be a better fit for most of his clients, and he will happily build a house that size when and if he can make the numbers work. “I think it would sell like hotcakes,” he says. “But to get small enough lots and high enough density is very difficult.”
In the meantime, though, Vaughn is shedding no crocodile tears. His current plan may be larger than he thinks ideal, but he speaks with pride of his design, an updated Shingle Style that is unusual in his area. “I got sick of my fieldstone-and-stucco Pennsylvania farmhouse,” he says, so he came up with something different. That flexibility is one virtue that all the custom builders we spoke with recognize about their work. Another is the opportunity, in an age of standardization and mass production, to handcraft a unique and sophisticated dwelling. That product, the house itself, is what drew these builders to custom building in the first place. For all of them, the houses they build—and the better ones they will build in the future, if they have their way—remain a prime source of satisfaction and motivation.
“It’s a cool business,” Vaughn says. “You not only get to create something, you get to work with someone to make it even better. And at the end, you’ve got something to show for it that’s hopefully going to be there a while.”
