Builders Who Work Like Owners

We understand the roles of owners, designers and builders, as we've worn all of these hats, and still do. We enjoy building the most because we love creating something from scratch or restoring older buildings that need a little help, back to life. As builders, we are tireless advocates for our owners and designers; we spend our time managing the costs, quality and schedule of every project with the hundred-strong subcontractors and material suppliers needed to make a sketch, or a dream, become a reality.

We’ve had many construction successes and a few failures as well, learning from them all. Every project and every team differs; we work early and often during team development to ensure our teams collective strengths are realized and put to work. Construction projects are inherently risk oriented and during the construction period, the team will be continuously challenged on costs, quality, schedule, unforeseen occurrences and team | subcontractor | vendor relations.

We’ve built as much as we’ve developed and owned, and then some. To us, building can be the most fun of the roles. It’s great to create. These differing roles give us a well-rounded and empathetic perspective, teaching us how important each of us are to the other. All three roles are mutually dependent on each other to ensure a project’s success. If we have a fixed price budget without adequate construction documents, the budget will not be accurate. If the project has a tight time-line, and material selections aren’t completed, the schedule will extend. If the team has too much work on their plate, the upfront expectations will not be met. From the start, we work to align and vet the integrity of costs, quality and schedule alongside functional contingencies, and with our team’s strengths bolstered.

Building Teams That Work Together

When planned and managed well, projects will be completed well and exceed the team’s early objectives. Listening to understand each other and tailoring our team’s approach for each team and project matters a lot. Building a residential custom home differs from restoring a mill building, developing land, or building a school.

Owners, designers and builders need to trust their building team. This is a given for every relationship and every project. We need to fit together and provide our team with the resources and tools we all need to succeed.

We’ve found that communication, realistic expectations, transparent assumptions, teams with the right resources and skills, repetition and simplicity during the process help the construction team succeed.

We’ve also found that focusing on all that is right, celebrating the daily and weekly successes, building and maintaining momentum, recognizing the commitment and skill of all that work on each project builds not only the building, but more importantly, the strength of the relationships needed to build every project. Strong teams will overcome challenges and obstacles when they are using their strengths and focused on all that is right, casting aside all that isn’t.

Buildings that Work with the Land

In the lakes and mountain regions of Northern New England, the relationship between the natural and built environment is so important or the long - term sustainability of our communities. As LEED Accredited professionals and Certified Green Builders, we look for every opportunity to design and construct buildings that respect the land they’re built on and use all of the best practices available to us for increasing a building’s sustainability.

Fortunately, many green and sustainable building practices have become more affordable and mainstream in the construction industry. Whether our clients are focused on LEED certified projects or best practices, we always strive for energy efficiency, low material waste, compact land usage, dark sky lighting, natural landscaping, high indoor air quality in our uniquely designed and constructed buildings.

When siting a building on the land, oftentimes shifting the building from side to side, or raising or lowering its vertical elevation, can significantly minimize disruption to the land, save costs and improve the end result. These subtle though important tweaks matter and they are not always visible when designing from a computer, or when weighing construction access on a higher scale than protecting natural land features.