Author: Rachael Kesler

Lack of real estate inventory may have you dreaming of building your own abode from the ground up. But what does the home-building process actually involve? We spoke to local realtor Jeff Mattie, partner with Core Real Estate Partners, to get the lay of the land on building your own home.

First, Mattie says, you want to use a reputable and knowledgeable realtor to help you acquire the land. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” he says.

After purchasing that ideal plot, you can secure a study period, a predetermined period during which the land is off-market and undergoes feasibility studies. This study period can include everything from investigating utilities, well access, and septic feasibility to determining site costs like grading or other land work. “During this period of 15 to 30 days (sometimes longer), you get to ask a lot of questions to better understand your property,” Mattie says. 

Concurrent with the study period, you’ll work out financing details. There are a few financing options, Mattie says. You can pay cash for the land and get a loan for just construction or obtain a construction-to-permanent loan—where the land is financed up front and, once a certificate of occupancy is issued for your home, the loan rolls into a mortgage. 

It’s also time to choose a builder. With this choice, “you’re basically signing up for a 12- to 14-month marriage,” Mattie says. “You want to like them and communicate well because there will be difficult conversations.”

With this step, Mattie recommends that his clients decide if they want a higher-end, custom experience or a more standard, predetermined home plan that will save money. For a more bespoke design-build experience, you can opt to work with an individual architect or a design-build firm to get something tailored exactly to your lifestyle, Mattie says.

After feasibility and financials have been sorted, you’ll work with a settlement company or attorney to close on your land, which can take 15 to 30 days. Then, you’ll finalize architectural plans for your home, hire someone to install a well, and begin submitting permits to your city or county of residence. “Issuing permits can take 60 to 90 days—it’s a necessary step, but it can be difficult,” Mattie says. “There can be delays during the permitting and design phases—this needs to be considered and accounted for. But if you use that time to ask more questions and become more familiar with the whole process, it’s going to benefit you and give you a better understanding of your home.”

Once permits are secured, it’s time to break ground. “Every builder is different when it comes to the timeline for construction,” Mattie says. “Some builders need 12 to 18 months of lead time, some can start right away. It’s good to have conversations early on about exactly when construction can begin so expectations are clear.”

Mattie says the typical timeline for completion is 10 to 14 months for a custom build and less time for a more standard plan. As the homeowner, you can be as involved as you’d like to be in the construction process. Mattie recommends asking lots of questions and getting clear on expectations for frequency and types of communication. “Some people have weekly meetings, [while] some just receive email updates from their builder,” Mattie says. “One good question to ask is whether your builder has a dedicated project manager for your job or if a floating PM rotates around job sites.” (A dedicated PM is ideal, Mattie says.) During construction, you’ll be locking in a mortgage rate, navigating any issues at the home site, and eventually picking out finishes for your dream home. After that, get ready to move in!

Mattie’s key piece of advice for someone building their own home? “Ultimately, the more involved you are, the more questions you ask, the better understanding you’ll have of how your home functions—that makes for more effective homeownership. It can be overwhelming but it’s a process that anyone can navigate with the right people on your team.”

Walking into Wag, the new veterinary clinic that Jesse Bejar opened last November in the heart of Ivy, you immediately get the sense that this is not your typical vet clinic. Maybe it’s the wall of tennis balls behind the reception desk, or the clean, modern design aesthetic. The vibe is playful, fun, and anything but ordinary. 

“The idea we had was for a community-based practice, one that’s more homey, fun, and enjoyable than a normal vet experience,” says Anna Boeschenstein, a local landscape architect who’s married to Bejar. For years, Bejar dreamed of opening his own practice—he and his wife regularly talked about their vision for what would someday come to pass.

After more than 20 years working in other vet clinics, Bejar says the pandemic finally nudged him toward going out on his own. “During COVID, trying to balance the demands of work with caring for 6-year-old twins—that’s when I realized that I needed a lot more flexibility,” he said. 

When an ideal property was developed in Ivy, Bejar and Boeschenstein started to get serious about the concept for the new space. “Anna took the lead on researching the design,” Bejar says, and she eventually made an important design contribution: the impossible-to-miss tennis ball wall, which greets everyone who walks in the front door. 

With a tight budget and specific limitations on how much he could augment the interior of the shell Wag would eventually inhabit, Bejar turned to Alisha and Mike Savage, with STOA Design+Construction and Savage Clark Architect, for the design/build work. “STOA didn’t have prior experience with this kind of project—they mostly do residential design/build—but Alisha was good at diving into the project and learning about the flow of the vet clinic,” Bejar says, noting that they really homed in on how create a “good flow” for the animals as they enter the building, get into the exam rooms, and then back to the treatment rooms. 

Bejar describes the clinic as something of a reverse mullet—party in the front and business in the back. The “front of house” (comprising the entryway, reception area, and exam rooms) is fun and open, with playful design elements, colorful exam entryways, and big windows to let light in. The back of house, where surgical procedures and treatments take place, is more cut-and-dried, Bejar says. 

Animal care clinics come with a laundry list of design and building considerations—managing all the fur and dander, keeping sick pets quarantined without contaminating the rest of the building, keeping sound transmission to a minimum—just to name a few. Alisha says they enjoyed the “dual challenge” of keeping the design fun and uplifting while addressing and thoughtfully designing to meet those specific technical requirements. 

Alisha says she and Mike tried to be nimble with the design and technical expectations, while staying sensitive to the overall budget. “We’d use off-the-shelf cabinetry and then engage our in-house woodworking expert to create special elements,” she says. “This was more cost-effective than subcontracting the special elements out to a custom cabinetry shop.” She notes that strategic use of color can be a suitable supplement for an investment in costly materials—e.g. the tennis-ball-colored exam entryway details.

Ultimately, says Bejar, “We wanted the clinic to be clean and unique, not like every other medical clinic you visit. We wanted it to have a sense of being playful and enjoyable.”

Balls on the walls

Fido’s in for some fun when he arrives in the lobby at Wag, which features a massive installation of hundreds of perfectly aligned tennis balls. Veterinarian Jesse Bejar’s wife, Anna Boeschenstein, a local landscape architect, was inspired by British artist David Shrigley’s “Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange,” an interative art installation in which hundreds of tennis balls line shelves of the exhibiting gallery. The exhibit evolves as visitors are invited to swap the new balls in the exhibit with old, dirty, used ones. “I got really excited about the potential to use inexpensive materials in cool ways,” Boeschenstein says of her inspiration for the wall. 

Wag’s tennis ball installation isn’t interactive, but it is playful and on-brand with rest of the clinic. Design elements throughout Wag tie in with the wall’s electric yellow hue—the exam room entryways are trimmed with the same color. STOA architect/general contractor Mike Savage used a computerized millwork machine to space, align, and drill holes for each ball. With access to that same tool, he says, a similar installation could be created for a child’s room with basketballs or soccer balls.