The homes we build

We build a small number of architecturally driven custom homes each year, for homeowners who care as much about how a project is run as how it photographs. These are considered, design-led houses - mountain-modern, contemporary, restrained traditional - where the architecture has a point of view and the construction has to honor it without quietly eroding it. We are deliberately not a high-volume builder. The work depends on attention, and attention does not scale infinitely. That constraint is the product.

Why we get involved early

Most homeowners hire an architect first and a builder last. By the time the builder arrives, the drawings are finished, the budget assumptions are baked in, and the only tools left are subtraction and compromise. Fernhill works the other way. We join while the design is still being shaped - pricing real options, flagging what's expensive before it's drawn, and protecting the ideas that matter most. Early involvement isn't about constraining the design. It's about giving it a budget it can survive and a path to get built intact. That work has a name and a home of its own.

How we work with architects

Good homes come from alignment between design, construction, and communication — not from any one working in isolation. We treat the architect as a partner, not a counterparty. We price as the design develops, raise constructability questions while they're still cheap to answer, and keep the conversation calm enough that nobody is defending territory. Architects refer the builders who don't surprise them. We work to be one of them.

Commercial-grade systems, residential work

Fernhill runs residential projects on the systems usually reserved for far larger commercial jobs: structured estimating, real schedules, documented decisions, and transparent cost reporting you can actually read. The result isn't bureaucracy. It's fewer surprises, cleaner communication, and a project that behaves predictably even when the architecture is ambitious.

Where we build

We're based at 429 Main St in Lyons and build throughout Boulder County and the greater Front Range - Denver, Boulder, Lyons, Niwot, Longmont, Lafayette, Louisville, and Superior among them. Local knowledge matters here: terrain, jurisdictions, review timelines, and site conditions all shape what's buildable and what it costs. We know this ground.