Business ProfileforBlackacre Builders, LLC

Blackacre Builders prides themselves on 'bringing superior craftsmanship and timeless luxury to custom home building'. This is exactly what my husband and I were looking for in our next home build. Will and his team were personable during the building process. The relationship began to unravel when we hired a private inspector prior to closing (we have done this with all of our home builds). Our inspector's report was thorough and spoke unfavorably about the lack of attention to details throughout our home. My husband and I walked through the house the morning before our scheduled closing date. We ended up delaying closing because the tile work in two of the bathrooms was terrible. There were 1/4" gaps between the tile and the baseboards and the pattern was laid incorrectly. It was the first time we had seen the floors in weeks because they had been covered. Will came to assess the work and said 'these are cosmetic issues' and reluctantly agreed to fix the tiles. This was just the beginning of a long, exhausting battle of getting work done that should have already been done. Immediately after closing, my husband and I came to the house to walk it through. We took many pictures to time stamp what we saw. It was overwhelming to know the amount of work we had in front of us on our new custom home. After 4 plus months of workers in/out of our home, we finally had the house we should have had when we closed. Will was not easy to work with during our one year comprehensive warranty period. He made it difficult to get the work done either stalling with getting workers scheduled or simply ignoring us resulting in repeated emails on the same issue, ie. the trees vs bushes that were planted. Will's 'upgrades' ended up costing us money in the end. For example, there was an unexplained 8 hour sewer 'upgrade' that left our backyard a mess. Still have not received an explanation as to what was done. A sewer crew arrived one morning to 'tilt a pipe and tie our system to the city line'. They came after a rain, dug up the yard and never properly regraded the space. We had to pay to have the yard regraded (and new grass planted) because Will would not. Most recently, the damper system that Will touted as an upgrade started to drip water from the overflow pan. Will sent the project manager and a HVAC specialist to assess. Instead of fixing the problem of installing a 12" bypass damper for the upstairs system as recommended by our HAVC company, Will only authorized his project manager to remove the upgrade altogether. We added the bypass system as recommend from our HVAC company and paid out of pocket despite being under warranty. There are many reasons that Will does not have testimonials from his last two builds (Schiller and Corbin) in Westview Terrace. Ask him why. We have a power point with pictures referencing our contract. We are happy to share. The 'melting' sheetrock and overspray of paint was one of the biggest issues. Most of our home had to be re-floated then repainted . The overspray of paint, fingerprints and smudges was embarrassing. Thankfully the original paint crew was dismissed after refusing them to return to and a more skillful crew completed the work as recommended by Blackacre's project manager. Blackacre Builders does not have a 'team of highly-skilled, professional contractors', but rather they have mediocre contractors that simply don't take pride in their work. Many of our frustrations could have been avoided if the work was done right the first time. Do your homework-- ask for referrals and talk to the homeowner's for a better understanding of the builder, their team and their work ethic.

It is unfortunate that ******** feels this way. Blackacre Builders prides themselves with excellent customer service and quality work and we believe we did so in this case as well. ******** was informed that the home was not ready for move in due to Covid 19-related supply and labor delays. Blackacre informed ******** on three separate occasions before closing that the home was not complete, needed additional time, and therefore needed to push back the closing date. However, ******** said that she had movers ready to go and wanted to move in regardless. She provided Blackacre assurance that she would be reasonable and allow Blackacre access to the home for completion of the work. Once ******** moved in, she became hostile with Blackacre employees and contractors even though she was fully aware that the home was not complete. Blackacre did everything in its power to make ******** happy with her new home. Blackacre provided extra rods in her master closet, paid her gas bills because she hadn’t set it up in time, installed her kegerator and bought wheels for it, replaced tile because she didn’t like her black grout choice, hired another paint crew because she didn’t like them, and more. Blackacre was communicative from start to finish with the client and our superintendent was at the home every day to make sure the contractors were doing the work to ********’s satisfaction. With every home we build, we recommend that the buyer gets a third-party inspection. In this case, ******** stated her relationship with Blackacre started to unravel because of the inspection report. The inspection report showed that there were minor remaining items to be taken care of as expected since the home was not yet completed, which had been communicated to ********. After move-in, Will and Superintendent visited the house to discuss the progress. ******** showed a PowerPoint presentation and did things like bringing out a trashed shelf from the garage that had been over sprayed and demanded why it had paint on it. It was a wood shelf that had been left in the garage and had been replaced with glass in the bar area. ******** also complained that the soft-close toilet seats were not closing but when shown, they were working properly. ******** complained that the hollies planted in the backyard were bushes, not trees. Blackacre did not ignore her and in fact, sent several emails stating that holly’s can be grown as either a bush or a small tree and provided horticultural references from Texas A&M Department of Horticultural Sciences that she did not believe. As for the backyard plumbing, after it was fixed, Blackacre re-graded and re-sodded, which was paid for by Blackacre and not ********. ********’s complaints are false, unreasonable, and over exaggerated. Blackacre does not recommend moving into a home that is not complete but tried to accommodate ******** because we felt like we could trust her to be reasonable with us as we finished the home during a pandemic. Since this experience, Blackacre has changed its policy and will not allow a buyer to move in until the home is completed. ********’s frustrations could have been avoided if she would have waited to move in after Blackacre completed the home as recommended. We regret that ******** feels this way and have done everything in our power to make this her perfect home. Blackacre Builders is committed to building architecturally distinctive homes with high quality workmanship and excellent customer service.