About
Twenty years of building in one town
We build in a market where the season is short, the permitting is complicated, and everybody knows everybody. All three of those reward a builder who does what he said he would.
Why we run open books
I started building here in 2004, and for the first several years I watched the same argument happen on other people's jobs. The owner thought the number was fixed. The builder knew it never was. Neither of them was lying, and by the time it surfaced there was no good way out of it.
So we stopped hiding the math. You see every subcontractor bid before we accept it, every material invoice as it comes in, and our fee as its own line item. When something moves, you know that week. It makes for some uncomfortable Tuesday phone calls and zero uncomfortable final invoices.
The other thing we do not do is take more work than we can staff. We run a small number of projects at a time on purpose, because a builder who is on four sites is really on none of them.
Stonepine Builders · CA License #B-0987654 (fictional)
What we run on
Feasibility before drawings
The most expensive mistake up here is designing a house you cannot afford to build. We have that conversation first, and it is free.
Permits are half the schedule
Town of Truckee, Placer County, Washoe County, and TRPA all behave differently. Knowing which governs your parcel is most of knowing your timeline.
Open books, both directions
You see every subcontractor bid, every material invoice, and our fee as a separate line. When a number changes you find out that week, not at the end. Nobody has ever been surprised by a Stonepine invoice, and that is the whole point.
Building in Truckee, Tahoe Donner, Glenshire, Martis Camp, Tahoe City, Kings Beach, Incline Village, and Northstar.
Start with the honest budget conversation
We walk the property, tell you what your number actually buys at 6,000 feet, and put the assumptions behind it in writing. No pressure, no vague lump sum.