What we build · Site & Structural Works
The Work Nobody Photographs
Dewatering, foundations, retaining structures and drainage. None of it appears in the finished-house photographs and all of it decides whether the program holds.
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 part that is subcontracted and shouldn't be
Most residential builders subcontract everything below grade. That puts the work most likely to delay the job — and most likely to produce a surprise — in the hands of a company whose schedule belongs to somebody else's project. On a Florida waterfront lot that is precisely the wrong thing to hand away.
What we self-perform
- Construction dewatering, including tidally influenced sites.
- Support of excavation where the neighbor is close.
- Deep foundations where the bearing stratum is deep.
- Site drainage, which on flat Florida lots is a real design problem.
- Coordination with seawall and marine work.
How we handle it
- 01Read the geotechnical report before pricing.
- 02Design dewatering to the tidal high, not the mean.
- 03Establish the discharge permit path early — it is often the longest lead item.
- 04Monitor adjacent structures where drawdown or excavation could affect them.
- 05Build the foundations, then hand a dry, stable site to the rest of the job.
Drainage on a flat lot deserves more attention than it usually gets. Florida rainfall arrives fast and the ground is often already saturated, so a landscape design that assumes water will simply soak away tends to produce a pond outside the new great room.
Said plainly
Where we stop
We will not price residential dewatering without a geotechnical report. It is the single most common source of change orders in Florida ground.
FAQ
Common questions
- Do we really need a geotechnical report for a house?
- On a waterfront or a difficult lot, yes. It is cheap next to what it prevents.
- Why does dewatering matter on a house?
- Because the water table is a few feet down. Any excavation below it is an excavation in water until something is done.
- Do you subcontract this?
- No. We self-perform it, which is unusual in residential work and the reason our programs tend to hold.
- What about drainage?
- On a flat lot it is a genuine design problem. Assuming water soaks away is how you get standing water at the new terrace.
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.
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The Program
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.
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Change Orders
Change orders are normal. Designs evolve, owners change their minds, and buildings reveal things. What is not normal is finding out about them at the end.
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More 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.
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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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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.