New Mexico’s largest city, Albuquerque sits in the high desert and has an estimated population of 558,000. When it comes to architectural sights, the city is known to have a modern downtown core that largely contrasts with Old Town Albuquerque. The Old Town is filled with historic adobe buildings like San Felipe de Neri Church, five museums, and shops that sell Native American handcrafts. Homes in this area carry a median price of $189,600 and can be accurately described as sturdy and well-built.
As expected of a city found in the middle of the desert, the first thing that comes to mind is the popularity of adobe and pueblo structures. Some of the most popular architectural styles are Pueblo revival architecture and Territorial Revival architecture. Both styles are heavily based on the ancient architecture of the Pueblos and the multi-generational architecture built during the Spanish, Mexican, and Territorial phases.
This list puts together the firms that masterfully build these homes and incorporate their own unique details into the ancient designs. Most of the firms on this list have also won awards from the Parade of Homes – a competition where great features and exciting new home projects in the Albuquerque area are featured. In addition, most of these firms were featured in Su Casa magazine – New Mexico’s local magazine for Southwestern homes, interior design, remodeling, and gardening.
If you are thinking about building a custom home, we recommend checking each builder’s license with the local licensing board, speaking to past clients, and using our bidding system to get competitive quotes from at least 3 contractors. Getting multiple bids is the best way to ensure you get a fair price and that bids include the complete scope of work. On the other hand, if you want to learn more about the cost of building a custom home in Albuquerque, check out our cost guide article.
15) Annex General Contracting + Design
6000 Cortaderia St., NE, Albuquerque, NM 87111
Founded in 1992, Annex General Contracting + Design began as a subcontractor in the metal stud framing, drywall, finish carpentry, and tile trades. The firm thrived on building large scale commercial projects and high-end custom homes in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, but by 1998, the firm grew into a company that does remodeling, restoring, and new builds. Within its years of building, it won the Excellence in Remodeling Award for its excellence in service to Albuquerque, South Valley, Rio Rancho, and the surrounding areas. In 2008, it was also featured on the Planet Green channel and in 2010, it was featured in Su Casa Magazine for a home remodel. These featured homes usually carry the modern, contemporary, or farmhouse styles.
The firm’s founder, Kevin Evans, grew up in the construction industry, where his father worked as a tile and drywall contractor in Farmington. Evans began his studies in architectural drafting and design at the Phoenix Institute of Technology while working for a commercial drywall contractor. After, he went on to study Architecture at UNLV.
The firm is a member of the HBA of Central New Mexico (HBACNM), the Remodelers Council, and Build Green New Mexico.
14) Casa Bella Construction
| Albuquerque, NM 87190
Inspiration can come from anywhere. In Dan and Cindy Fulcher’s case, inspiration came when they saw their fathers create beautiful buildings and homes of quality design. In early 1996, Dan Fulcher first experienced full-time home building. Within five years, he worked for a large local builder as a construction superintendent and estimator.
Counting Casa Bella Construction and his previous experience, he has supervised the successful construction of over 125 homes. These homes include the European, Tuscan, Old-World, Contemporary, Pueblo, classical, and Early American styles. Some of Fulcher’s work has won awards from the Parade of Homes, including the Gold Award, the Buyer’s Choice Award, the Silver Award, the Best Bath Award, and the Best Kitchen Award. The firm is a member of the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) and the HBACNM.
13) J.C. Anderson Construction Co.
| 3435 Girard NE, Suite B, Albuquerque NM 87107
For 30 years, company president Jack Anderson worked in the luxury home construction industry. In 2004, he founded J.C. Anderson Construction Co. with superintendent Jeff Parks. Together, they built more than 40 luxury custom homes together and completed several remodels in the Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Corrales, Rio Rancho, and East Mountain areas. Combining Anderson and Parks’s extensive backgrounds, the duo has more than 60 years of experience in building custom homes across the state. Thanks to these years of experience, Anderson and Parks were able to hone the ability of visualizing and uniquely placing each house in a way that maximizes New Mexico’s breathtaking landscape.
The firm is capable of building these luxury homes on flat lots or even rugged hills without sacrificing cost-effective strategies and ways to minimize site impact. As a testament to the team’s abilities, the firm was featured in the 2013 issue of Su Casa Magazine for a home in Tijeras. A soft contemporary, Southwestern style home, its design is a constant reminder of the nature surrounding it. In the living room, soaring clerestory windows provide the homeowners natural light that brightens the large space, while solar tubes in the kitchen remove the need for extensive indoor lighting.
12) Rutherford Design and Construction
| 3408 Vista Alameda NE Suite C, Albuquerque, NM 87113
Rutherford Design and Construction was established in 1993 by Ric T. Rutherford. The firm offers full residential and commercial construction services throughout New Mexico, focusing on the Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas. Its commercial work can also be seen scattered around the town. Just some of its notable commercial works are Fiat of Albuquerque, Builders Source Appliance Gallery, and Melloy Dodge. The homes they build meanwhile usually exhibit the traditional, craftsman, and modern styles, and have won the 2018 Buyer’s Choice Award in the Homes of Enchantment Parade.
The firm also won seven awards from the Spring Home of Enchantment Parade and was featured in the 2018 issue of Su Casa Magazine. In this issue, the magazine featured Rutherford’s North Valley home. An award winner for custom home exterior, portal, pond, and landscaping, this distinctive 4,000 square foot home boasts colorful brick pavings, clay roof tiles, and weathered railing on a bridge spanning the pond. Combining all these features, the home excludes an old world feel that harmonizes with an artistic blend of several styles.
11) Sun Valley Homes
| 6401 Picardia Place NW, Albuquerque, NM 87120
Established in 2009, Sun Valley Homes is a member of the HBACNM and has won awards from the 2017 and 2018 Parade of Homes. In 2018, it won the Buyer’s Choice Award, the Best Kitchen Award, the Best Interior Decorating Award, and the Best Bath Award. These award-winning homes were constructed with the goal of keeping the firm’s reputation for quality, innovative design, customer satisfaction, and lasting value.
One of its most notable projects is the 2018 parade of homes award-winning contemporary home. Possessing Sandia views, the home boasts crisp, clean lines that harmonize with the warm tones and organic materials. It also has floor to ceiling windows, brick floors, light wells, a masonry fireplace, and steel and glass barn doors that have become the key element in making this home dynamic and architecturally unique. The firm’s founder, Wade Wingfield, has over 25 years of building experience, and endless opportunities to be involved in nearly all aspects of home construction.
10) Panorama Homes
| 9700 Sand Verbena Trl NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122
Founder John Lowe is a third generation builder who founded Panorama Homes after 15 years of experience in commercial construction and development. Through the years, he has been involved with many well-known commercial projects in Albuquerque. Since then, he has built over 200 custom homes, each tailored to the owner’s requirements. This firm was featured in the 2009 issue of Su Casa Magazine and won the 2017 Parade of Homes awards for Best Kitchen, Best Bath, the Green Awards, and the Premier Awards. With these awards, it’s only expected that the careful planning and skillful building required by high-end green homes comes as second nature.
Every home is designed from scratch and incorporates each client’s preferred styles. The houses also usually incorporate Southwestern, Old World Tuscan, and Contemporary Modern styles, and even eclectic combinations of different styles. One of the firm’s most notable projects is the Eldred residence. Found near the Sandia Mountains, it carries the Western style. Through the house, alder wood can be seen in rich, deep grain tones for the ceiling beams, pillars, built-in bookcases, cabinets, and window molding trim. Its high ceiling emphasizes the home’s spaciousness, while the vast south-facing windows show off the outdoor living spaces and adjacent golf course.
9) John Kaltenbach Homes
| PO Box 21114, Albuquerque, NM 87154
Established in 1994, John Kaltenbach Homes has been known for building livable homes with attention to detail in both design and construction. The firm serves the Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas and builds homes in the contemporary, traditional, southwest, and modern styles. One of the firm’s notable projects is in the High Desert. Called the Brahmavista (meaning “yearn for a view”), it has a survey marker embedded in the center of the round foyer which tells the exact location of the residence. It is owned by James R. Cole, DDS, and Terri L. Cole, President of Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, and is possibly the only home incorporated around a marker (Latitude 35″09′. Longitude 106″28′).
The firm’s founder, John Kaltenbach, has 25 years of diverse residential building experience and works with well-known architects, including Jim Beverly, known for studying Southwestern designs and architecture.
8) John Mark Custom Homes
| 9000 Alameda Blvd, NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122
John Mark Custom Homes can be described as a gathering place for industry leaders. The firm has a team of builders with over 30 years of experience, including two architects and a collaborating design team. It was built with founder John Mark Jones’ idea that owners should live in the home they want without compromising anything. Building truly custom homes, the residences the team designs are usually in the modern and contemporary styles and can mostly be seen in the Albuquerque area. In 2018, one of these homes was crowned the Parade Award Winner. In the same year, Su Casa Magazine featured the firm in their Su Casa Spotlight.
A project worth mentioning is John Jones and Cristy Delgado’s Northeast Heights Home. After searching for a home that could be tailored to his mother’s needs, Jones and Delgado elected to build a house themselves. With architect Christian Mathias, the pair successfully came up with a home design that earned the residence a majority of the 2016 Homes of Enchantment Parade awards: Best Kitchen, Best Outdoor Living Space, Best Bath, Best Interior Design, the Premier award, and the Most Innovative Award. The award-winning home is a 4,350 square foot residence and is stunning overall. Most notably, the interior houses a pair of pillars colored with a chic cream to black ombre finish. They were placed in the entry and dining areas, grandly scaling living spaces without completely separating them. Everything in the home glimmers with a subtle feeling of accessible luxury, from the paint and metallic furnishings to the painstakingly chosen wallpaper. The homes itself though has an undecided style. According to Jones and Delgado, it was too edgy to be traditional, and too classic to be completely modern.
7) ECOterra Design-Build
| 8100 Wyoming NE, M4-347, Albuquerque, NM 87113
ECOterra Design-Build is a firm that seriously holds to the focus of building green homes. Since its establishment in 2013, ECOterra Design-Build has continuously worked on sustainable communities and homes that can last for a lifetime. These green homes are usually in the southwestern and contemporary styles, and were featured in the 2017 issue of Su Casa Magazine. In addition to a magazine feature, the firm also won Best home, Best Green Home, and Best Kitchen and Bath from the HBACNM. In the Placitas Home Tour, it also won gold for Best Green Home.
The firm’s founder, Kaye Marshall, has been building homes for over 25 years. A driving force in energy efficient residential and small commercial construction projects in New Mexico, she has degrees in Architecture and Civil Engineering from the University of New Mexico. The firm is also a member of the HBACNM, the NAHB, the Green Build Council of New Mexico, and the Association of Energy Engineers. It is a Certified Energy Star Partner, Green Builder, Energy Manager, and has a Green Designation from the National Association of Realtors.
6) TC Building & Realty, Inc.
| 8100 Wyoming Blvd, NE #159, Albuquerque, NM 87113
TC Building and Realty, Inc. was founded by Thomas Cardenas. For the past three decades of its establishment, the firm’s homes have exhibited a reflection of artistic creation and passion for old world architecture and Spanish haciendas. An award-winning firm, its homes can be identified through the high level of intricacy and devotion to the authenticity of handcrafted detail. Because of such high attention to its projects, the firm has won many awards; most recently from the 2017 home of Enchantment Parade. These awards included the Premier, the Best Kitchen, the Most Innovative, best Interior decorating, and the Best Outdoor Living Space award.
In addition to winning many awards, it has also been featured in the 2016 and 2017 issues of Su Casa Magazine. The 2017 issue featured a Los Ranchos home designed for life, work, and technology. Roughly 5,300 square feet, this residence has an old world flair with some Mediterranean and Southwestern features. It was built with Mike Cabber- Cardenas’s regular go-to architect and local legend for his talented freehand design work. The firm serves the Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas and is a member of the HBACNM, Build Green New Mexico, NAHB, the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors, and the National Association of Realtors.
5) Joseph Custom Homes
| Albuquerque, NM 87193
A winner of the 2013 Parade of Homes’ ‘Homes of Enchantment’s Buyer’s Choice Award’ and the 2008 Best Kitchen, Best Bath, and Buyer’s Choice Awards, Joseph Custom Homes has served Albuquerque since 1995 by building award-winning design-build homes and completing remodeling projects. Within its years of business, the firm has done over 250 projects across the U.S. In 2010, it was featured in Professional Builder Magazine, and in 2014 the Albuquerque Journal.
Founded in 1995, Joseph Custom Homes was founded by Greg and Miriam Joseph. Greg has built custom homes for over 25 years in Alaska, New York, and the Southwest. A premier builder of choice, he has extensive construction knowledge. Miriam meanwhile is a member of the ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) with an education in architecture.
4) Lee Michael Homes
| 7910 Rancho de Roberto Rd, NW, Albuquerque, NM 87114
For over 30 years, Lee Michael Homes’ founders Mike and Alexa Knight have built energy efficient, livable, and useful homes for many generations of Albuquerque homeowners. The firm has been the recipient of multiple awards, including Best Kitchen, Best Bathroom, Best Interior Decorating, Most Innovative, Best Outdoor Living Space, and the Premier award from the 2017 Parade of Homes of Enchantment. In addition, it was also featured in Su Casa Magazine’s 2018 issue. The firm is a member of the ASID and the HBACNM. It is also LEAD certified by the EPA.
The firm specializes in building residences on all types of southwest terrains, like the sloped and steep lots in the East Mountain Area. While maintaining the privacy and preservation of the land, trees, and natural vegetation, the firm has the goal of capturing the best views. They also use regional designs with appealing subtle, contemporary accents.
3) Vineyard Homes
|5820 4th St. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87107
Over the past 20 years, founder Debrah Short has successfully turned Vineyard Homes into one of the finest custom building companies in New Mexico. A member of the HBACNM, the firm won several building awards during the Parade of Homes. Its most recent award comes from the 2018 Parade of Homes, where it won the Buyer’s Choice, Best Home, and two Best Kitchen awards. These homes are usually in the Mediterranean, modern, and traditional styles.
The firm was also recognized by magazines such as Builder/Architect Magazine, Albuquerque Journal, and Home and Land Magazine. One of the homes was featured in the 2016 issue of Su Casa Magazine. The home was built around the architect and sandal designer, Bernard Rudofsky’s concepts and combined multiple elements. The home has hard and soft textures and old and new pieces that convey the Comeau couple’s eclectic taste.
2) Diego Hand Crafted Homes
| 8100 Wyoming Blvd. NE Suite M4-511, Albuquerque, NM 87113
A firm that has earned recognition from magazines such as the Albuquerque Journal, Su Casa Magazine, Professional Magazine, Professional Remodeler Magazine, and Custom Builder Magazine, Diego Hand Crafted Homes is a 17-year old company that builds stunning, award-winning custom homes. Most recently, the firm won the 2017 Premier Award, the Premier Green Home Award, Best Kitchen, Best Bath, Best Outdoor Living Space, and Most Innovative Award, all from the HBA of Central New Mexico’s Parade of Homes. These award-winning houses usually are built with the modern, craftsman, or Tuscan styles in mind. Its founder Diego M. Ruiz has a combined background of fine arts, graphic design, construction, and architecture. He also draws inspiration from historical architectural influences and styles seen from his travels throughout Spain, Mexico, El Salvador, and Tahiti.
A great example of the firm’s projects is the Kirkpatrick family’s high desert residence. Nestled before the Sandia Mountains, this house has a Southwest contemporary exterior that possesses clean-lined stucco walls and a facade clad in earth-toned stack stone. Its exterior stonework also has striations (furrows or linear marks) that mimic those found in ancient geological foundations. The interior has walls made of limestone and rough, random castle-cut sandstone around the fireplace. There is also a pair of dramatic limestone arches reminiscent of Roman aqueducts that cross the great room and patio. Overall, the house is a Southwest contemporary that blends Old World and Mediterranean elements with the owner’s own taste.
1) Koinonia Architects and Builders
| 11508 Zinfandel Avenue NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122
Named after the Greek-word ‘Koinonia,’ [koy-noh-nee-ah] meaning fellowship and partnership, Koinonia Architects and Builders was established in 1991 and has consistently been recognized as the Premier builder in Albuquerque’s Parade of Homes competition. Koinonia has also been selected as a featured home in the “wounded warrior” home tour which benefits wounded veterans.
The firm has built some of the largest custom homes in Albuquerque ranging from 4,000 to 12,000 square feet, with a cornucopia of luxury amenities including wine cellars and tasting rooms, movie theaters, sports car display garages, tropical grottos, art galleries, indoor and outdoor waterfalls, and Italian “Piazza” courtyards to name a few. Koinonia serves top-end home buyers in the most exclusive neighborhoods including “Prado”, “Sauvignon”, and “La Cantara,” with properties ranging from $750k to $5M. To date, the firm has completed over 100 projects with styles ranging from Old World Tuscan to Pueblo Southwestern to Regional Modern.
Founder Paul McDonald’s expertise as a Master Builder drives Koinonia’s reputation as a premier luxury custom home builder in Albuquerque. Paul is not only a builder but also an architect; he studied architecture at the University of New Mexico before obtaining his license and starting his own architecture and engineering firm. Essentially, Koinonia is a one-stop shop that offers a range of premium services including site acquisition, architecture and interior design consulting, professional landscape design, mortgage assistance, and up to a 10-year warranty on work.
It’s no wonder that the firm has been featured in a number of magazines including Best Kitchen in the widely-read publication Albuquerque The Magazine and the southwestern home magazine Su Casa. Even celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Simpson have chosen Koinonia homes to lease for short-term stays while in Albuquerque.
Update: This list was updated in February to reflect additional information that became available.
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Custom Home Builders in New Mexico
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This list takes a range of ranking criteria into consideration, including but not limited to: work history, customer satisfaction, awards and recognition, geographic area of work, cost, building permits, and clientele. We spent over 40 hours researching local contractors before calculating the final ranking for this post. If there is additional information about your business that could affect these rankings, please fill out this form and we will take it into consideration.
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If you are thinking about building a custom home, we recommend checking each builder’s license with the local licensing board, speaking to past clients, and using our bidding system to get competitive quotes from at least 3 contractors. Getting multiple bids is the best way to ensure you get a fair price and that bids include the complete scope of work.
