_____________________________________________________________________________________________ Camerata Homes
“ Once we have helped the client find the ideal site that can accommodate all of their requirements, we then move to designing the home. We strive to understand the client’ s needs and desires, taking their style and character into account. We then arrange the spaces within that particular home to capture the views they may appreciate, whether that be the morning sunrise or the sunset, and incorporate it all into the equation to produce the best product that takes advantage of all the natural assets of the location and meets the client’ s needs.”
Having been founded in 2005, the company has had to overcome several significant periods of economic challenge. Jan explains how the business has navigated the difficult moments that many building companies succumbed to:“ After initially having some success in the high-end custom home market, the 2007 crash happened, and by 2008 the housing market had basically gone to zero. As more and more building companies were going under, we managed
to weather the storm. We ended up taking on smaller projects where people we had worked with previously wanted us to finish a basement, for example. This kept all of our trades and vendors going.
“ Then we started acquiring decrepit properties downtown. Rather than the more typical fix and flip model, which involved essentially putting a new floor in, painting, and decorating, we took to fully gutting the house. We would fully dismantle the homes and repurpose the spaces inside. We did dozens of these projects; it was a really exciting challenge to keep the character of these old buildings while transforming the interior for a modern living style. My background in engineering came in handy with any structural challenges that we encountered.
“ As the market started expanding, we moved back towards doing custom homes but retained this service. It was a very useful evolution of the company. It was also a great learning experience; it demonstrated the need for flexibility in these markets.
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