Custom Home Building
Custom homes, built from your architect's drawings
W. H. Lyon Builders builds custom homes from architect- and designer-produced drawings. We work within AIA-standard contract documents, and we treat construction as a continuation of the design process, not the end of it. The goal is a finished house that matches the drawings you fell in love with, built with the same care in the field.
What that looks like on site
Our work runs from structural framing through finish carpentry and bespoke millwork. On our Suburban Estate project that meant a slate roof with dentil molding at the cornice, a mahogany entry, a wood-trussed great room, curved vaulted ceiling framing in the primary bedroom, an ironwood office, a wine cellar, a home theater and a billiard room with a wet bar. Every one of those spaces depends on decisions made long before the finish trades arrive.
Open book, from estimate to final invoice
We build open book. Your budget and billing are visible to you throughout the project, with a clearly disclosed builder's fee. We don't hold retainage, and we've written about why. If you're still deciding how to structure the contract, The Different Types of Construction Budgets Explained walks through the options.
Materials with character
More of our clients are asking for reclaimed timbers, old-growth beams and natural finishes in new construction. We evaluate and detail those materials so they perform as well as they look. Read more in Reclaimed Lumber in New Construction.
Twelve months a year
We build through the winter. Cold changes how we sequence and protect the work, not whether it happens. See Building Through a New England Winter.
Where we build
Lexington, Concord, Bedford, Lincoln, Sudbury, Weston, Carlisle, Westford, Littleton, Groton, Chelmsford, Andover and North Andover in Massachusetts, plus Nashua, Hudson and the Lakes Region in New Hampshire. Building on the water? Start with Before You Break Ground.