Home/Custom Home Building

What we do

Custom home building in Central Iowa

Design-build new construction across the Des Moines metro — on a platted lot, on family land, or on the acreage you have been driving past for years.

One contract, one team, one number

Design-build means the people drawing your house and the people framing it work for the same company. That matters more than it sounds. When the architect and the builder are separate, every budget problem becomes a negotiation and every change becomes someone else's fault.

We draw, price, and build. If a detail is going to cost more than it is worth, you hear it while it is still a line on paper — not after the trusses are set.

Plans drawn around your lot's actual grade, setbacks and sun
Line-item budget with named allowances, not vague per-square-foot math
Selections locked before ground breaks so the price holds
A single builder responsible from permit to punch list

Vaulted great room with a stone fireplace, timber mantel and prow window wall in a Des Moines metro custom home

Project types

The builds we take on

Full custom design-build

A house drawn from a blank page. We start with how you use a Tuesday morning and a Saturday in November, then design to it. Best for owners with a specific site or a specific way of living that stock plans keep missing.

Build on your lot

You own the ground — a lot in an Ankeny or Waukee development, an infill parcel in Des Moines, or inherited family acres. We handle soils, grade, utilities, covenants and the city's permit process.

Acreage & rural builds

Outside city limits the build includes the things nobody warns you about: well, septic, driveway, power run, county permitting, and a grading plan that keeps water away from the foundation. We scope all of it up front.

Modified plan homes

Start with a layout that already works and change the parts that do not fit — widen the garage, move the laundry, finish the walkout. Faster and cheaper than full custom, still genuinely yours.

Included, not upsold

What comes standard on a Stone + Timber home

Central Iowa is full of base-price homes where the base price does not include a driveway. Ours includes the things a finished house needs.

Envelope built for the climate

Continuous exterior insulation options, sealed and inspected air barrier, and attic detailing that stops ice dams before they start.

Real site work

Excavation, backfill, final grade, driveway and seeding are in the contract — not a surprise allowance discovered at closing.

Solid interior carpentry

Full-height cabinetry, quartz tops, solid-wood mantels and stair parts installed by finish carpenters who do this every week.

Mechanicals sized properly

Manual J load calcs instead of rules of thumb, so the system is quiet, efficient, and actually keeps up in July and January.

Documented selections

Every fixture, finish and appliance recorded with model numbers. You know what you are getting and what it costs.

A real warranty

One-year workmanship walkthrough at month eleven, plus the structural and manufacturer coverage in writing.

Included as standard

The parts people photograph, and the parts they do not

Walk-in pantry with solid timber shelves on three walls above quartz counters — **Storage that was planned**A walk-in pantry with real shelving and counter space, drawn in at design rather than carved out of a closet later.

Walk-in tile shower with two rain heads, white subway tile and black hexagon side walls — **Tile work that will not fail**Waterproofing you will never see, a floor that drains where it should, and niches laid out on the grout line.

Vaulted kitchen with a black waterfall island and custom mudroom lockers beyond a barn door — **Volume where it counts**Carrying the ceiling to the ridge costs almost nothing at framing and changes the room permanently.

Custom stained mudroom lockers with bench, cubbies and iron hooks — **The unglamorous rooms**Mudroom, laundry, pantry. Nobody photographs them and everybody uses them every single day.

Questions worth asking any Central Iowa builder

Interview more than one. When you do, ask these — the answers separate builders faster than a portfolio does:

What is in your allowances, in dollars, by category? If they cannot produce the list, the price is not real.
Who is on my site every day? A superintendent running four builds is different from one running twelve.
How do you handle a change order? Look for written pricing before the work happens, every time.
What does your schedule assume about weather? An Iowa build plan that ignores a March thaw is a wish, not a schedule.
Can I call three owners from two years ago? Recent clients are happy. Two-year clients tell you about the warranty.

Ask us these questions