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Forty years of building custom luxury residences in Scottsdale
and Paradise Valley have cultivated some very important
insights for Jerry Meek, President of Desert Star Construction.
When it comes to building smart, there are essential criteria
every homeowner should keep in mind to avoid costly mistakes
that could derail a project from its original schedule and budget.
Jerry shared with us some of his trade secrets that have helped
his clients not only design homes that live beautifully, but also
remain affordable both today and in the future.
Homeowners have to make hard decisions and ultimately live
with the consequences of those decisions, so building smart
first starts with choosing the right team that not only has the
talent and skills to complete the job, but also upholds the same
values to enable the process to flow as seamlessly as possible.
The team should be aligned with helping the client realize their
vision, and they need to be flexible to allow for grand ideas
to be shaped into possibilities that realistically fit the client’s
budget. This includes providing intelligent information that
looks at the total cost of construction, as well as what it will cost
to live in the home, after construction is complete.
Having a knowledgeable and experienced team that
understands how to effectively incorporate sustainability
into the initial build of the home is another good example
of building smart. I believe there has been a shift in this
perspective over the last decade when it comes to sustainable
living and luxury. Sustainable living is no longer the exception,
but becoming more the everyday norm. We recently built a
home that integrated a geothermal HVAC system that would
be more expensive up front than installing a traditional
air-conditioning system. Through research and proper
communication with the entire team, our client understood
that a sustainability initiative such as this, though more costly at
first, takes less energy to run and is supported by government
incentives, which could turn into long-term savings.
Jerry Meek talks about the planning, technology
and process behind building a custom home.