The studio
A framing crew that learned to draw, and never stopped framing.
We started in 1998 as two carpenters with a truck. We became a design-build firm because we got tired of building other people's mistakes.
For our first eight years we framed houses for other builders, from drawings made by people who had never set a truss in a February wind. We saw the same problems again and again: roofs that trapped snow, windows that faced the neighbor instead of the view, budgets that fell apart the day the excavator hit granite.
In 2006 a client asked whether we could just draw the house ourselves. We hired our first designer, built that house for the price we quoted, and have worked that way ever since: the people who draw the house sit beside the people who build it, and both answer to one contract.
Today we are twenty-two people. We keep our own framing and finish carpenters on payroll, run a small cabinet and stair shop in Spearfish, and take on six homes a year. We could build more. We would rather build these well.
What we hold to
Three rules we have not broken yet.
- i.Fewer homes, built betterSix a year. Enough to keep good people busy, few enough that nobody is stretched across four sites.
- ii.One number, in writingYou know the price before we dig. If it changes, it is because you changed something and signed for it.
- iii.The same faces, start to finishThe designer who drew it and the superintendent who priced it are at your final walk-through.
The crew
Our own people, on our own payroll.
Framing and finish work are done by carpenters who work only for us. Some have been here since the first truck. On a real site, this is where your team's photos and names would go.
Since 1998
How we got here.
- 1998Two carpenters and a truckA framing crew in Spearfish, working for other builders across the northern Hills.
- 2006The first house we drew ourselvesA client asked us to design and build. We hired a designer and never went back.
- 2014Our own shopCabinets, stairs and built-ins move in-house, so the trim matches the drawings.
- 2021The hundredth homeHanded over in Deadwood, to the grown children of clients from 2003.
- TodaySix homes a yearFrom Spearfish Canyon to Hot Springs, each with its own superintendent.
Work with us
Come see one being built.
The best way to judge a builder is to walk one of their job sites. Ask us and we will take you through a house in progress.
Photo: echolake houseutah / Unsplash