The decisions · The Program
How Long It Actually Takes
Every owner is told a number at the start and most projects take longer. The gap is usually permitting, long-lead items and decisions — rarely the building itself.
Bring the drawings at whatever stage they are. An honest range and the decisions that move it, before anyone quotes.
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
Self-perform
Dewatering, SOE and deep foundations in house
Leadership
Delivered Fifth Avenue and Central Park West interiors
Open book
Where the contract is cost-plus, the books open
The schedule is not mostly construction
On a substantial custom home, actual construction is often the smaller share of the elapsed time. Design development, permitting, long-lead procurement and owner decisions consume the rest, and those are the parts most often compressed on paper because they feel like they should be quick.
Where the time actually goes
- Design development and a genuinely complete construction set.
- Permitting, which in some Florida jurisdictions is months.
- Long-lead items: specialty windows, stone, millwork, elevators.
- Owner decisions, which are the most controllable delay and the most common.
- Weather and the wet season, which is a real program input here.
How we handle it
- 01Give a realistic program with the assumptions written down.
- 02Identify long-lead items early and order against the schedule.
- 03Set owner decision deadlines and report against them.
- 04Update the program honestly when it moves, rather than at the end.
Owner decisions are the delay owners have most control over and least visibility of. A selection made three weeks late does not cost three weeks — it can cost a trade sequence, which is considerably more.
Said plainly
Where we stop
If you have a hard date driven by a sale, a school year or an event, tell us at the start. Sometimes the honest answer is that the date is not achievable, and that is much better said in month one.
FAQ
Common questions
- How long for a custom home?
- Well over a year for a substantial house, often considerably more once permitting and long leads are counted.
- How long is permitting?
- Jurisdiction dependent and frequently months. It is a real line on the program, not an administrative afterthought.
- What causes most delays?
- Owner decisions and long-lead procurement, more often than trades.
- Does the wet season matter?
- For site work and the envelope, yes. It is planned around rather than ignored.
What we build
Custom Homes
A custom home is the only project where every decision is still open, which is exactly why it is the easiest one to lose control of financially.
Read more →
Waterfront Construction
On a waterfront lot the building is often the straightforward part. The water table, the seawall, the flood elevation and the permitting are what decide the program and a large share of the cost.
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Whole-House Renovation
Renovating an existing house is harder to price than building a new one, because a meaningful part of the scope is behind finishes nobody has opened.
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Historic Restoration
In a historic district the approval process governs the design, and it operates on a timescale that has nothing to do with construction.
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Additions & Second Stories
An addition is constrained by a building that was designed for a different life. Whether the existing foundation and structure can carry the new load is the first question and it is not always answered yes.
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Guest Houses & Accessory Structures
A guest house is a small building governed by disproportionately complicated rules. Zoning, not design, determines what is possible.
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More the decisions
Fixed Price or Cost-Plus
The contract type decides who carries the risk of the unknown, and both answers are legitimate. What is not legitimate is a fixed price on drawings that cannot support one.
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Choosing a Builder
Three builders will show you three beautiful portfolios and three numbers that differ by a lot. The portfolio tells you what they photograph, not what they are like to build with.
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Allowances & Selections
An allowance is a placeholder for a decision you have not made. A contract full of them is a contract whose final number has not been decided.
Read more →
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.