Best Builder

Meet John Hawkins, Principle at Hawkins-Welwood Homes

By Candy Evans / August 15, 2018 /

If you have lived in Dallas or North Texas for more than six months, chances are you have been inside a Hawkins-Welwood Home. Hawkins-Welwood homes are everywhere, stretching from the Park Cities to Plano to Frisco and soon, Southlake. The company is also delving into luxury high rises: Hawkins-Welwood Homes has created the amenity areas…

CandysDirt Best Builder Profile: Tony Visconti of BELLA Custom Homes

By Candy Evans / June 20, 2018 /

Spring is home building season in North Texas, and as we learned at NAREE last week, we need more homes! But when it comes to building your dream house, you want to select your home builder with extreme caution. That’s why we carefully curate our homebuilders on CandysDirt.com: a check doesn’t cut it, you have…

Eighteen Years of Grand Designs Demonstrate Creativity in UK Home Building

By Jon Anderson / November 20, 2017 /

I’ve written about Grand Designs before. It’s the long-running UK house-building show that’s just finished its 18th season. Unlike US shows, with their short attention spans, Grand Designs follows the progress of people building their dream homes from scratch.  Sure, sometimes “scratch” means from the dirt up, but it can also mean converting an old structure…

The Build to Suit Process a la Bella Custom Homes: Brick & Mortar that Lasts a Lifetime

By Candy Evans / September 15, 2017 /

Editor’s Note: Bella Custom Homes is a 25-year Dallas-based custom luxury home builder who has built homes for the most discriminating homeowners in Dallas. His company is not to be confused with the now defunct Bella Vita Custom Homes, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Let’s face it: the Dallas real estate market is…

Dallas Builders Association’s ARC Awards: Part 2, Saving The Best For Last

By Jon Anderson / August 30, 2016 /

Previously, I wrote about the winners of the Dallas Builders Association’s annual ARC awards in the kitchen categories.  Now that we’ve had a little nosh, let’s see the winners in the rest of the house. Missed part 1?  Click here! While there were nine categories dedicated to kitchens, bathrooms didn’t fare so generously with just…