Business Bulding

A bit different, wouldn’t you say? Luxury Homes is now Luxury Home Builder. Why the change you wonder?

Simple: this magazine and these articles aren’t just about the homes featured in "The Tour" section of each issue. While these dwellings are some of the most spectacular examples of new residential construction, they are only part of the story. The story behind the story, if you will, is you--the builder who crafts these homes.

Everything we do in this magazine is about one thing--helping you build a business--and not just a house. This has always been the mission of this magazine and we think the new name puts the emphasis where it needs to be.

The name isn’t the only thing different in this issue. There is a new and important new feature in Luxury Home Builder--The Tutorial. Custom home builder Tom Stephani is a lot like most of you. His company builds homes and not just houses, and there is a difference. While every house eventually becomes a home, the business of building homes versus houses is very different.

Luxury home building defies nearly every characteristic that makes for successful production building--product and floorplan standardization in an almost manufacturing-type environment. It’s a faster paced business that depends, in part, on rapidly converting lots to houses to be profitable. Yours is a business of one--building a specific house for a specific client in a specific location. This is the truest definition of a custom home.

The business of building these homes is risky. The time it takes to plan and construct a luxury home is long and leaves a lot of room for leaks--not of the natural kind but of the dollar variety. The best budget at the beginning of a project can look very different at the end. It is this topic--building a profitable business from the first day and every day forward--that Tom explains. He lives your world day in and day out and has likely made many of the same mistakes. He knows how hard it is to manage the business while managing the client, the subcontractors, the construction and the office. He also knows how critical it is. Neglecting the business puts all the rest in peril.

Study The Tutorial. I think the information you find there is worthwhile. Tom’s real-world perspective on managing the business is the perfect complement to the design ideas in The Tour and the practical, first-hand building tips offered in The Table.

Our job as a magazine is to gather this information and present it in such a way that our entire industry learns and grows from these examples. Your job is two-fold: