Forty-seven years. Three hundred-plus homes. Here are the stories.
We don't keep a glossy catalogue of finished homes. We keep a working record of what we built, where, and what we learned doing it. Below: the milestones that shaped the practice — from the first house in Edmonton in 1979, through the ICF era starting 1995, to the Georgian Bay-focused work we do today.
The proof, not a portfolio reel.
Most builder portfolios are a curated highlight reel of finished kitchens and twilight exterior shots. This isn't that. This is the working record of how the practice got here — the milestone homes, the unusual ones, the ones where we learned something.
The arc matters. We didn't start in ICF. We started in 1979 with a solo build in Edmonton, worked through commercial construction in the prairie boom, moved east after the 1982 recession, and learned residential the hard way. Radiant floors came in 1991. ICF came in 1995. The Georgian Bay focus came in 2005. Each era taught us something we still build with.
A trip through time.
Eight milestone projects, in order. Each one earned its place either by being a first, by being unusual, or by teaching us something we still apply on every build today.
The first house. Built solo, from scratch.
The career started here. A first house built on my own in Edmonton, deep in the prairie construction boom. Commercial work would come right after, but this was the build that proved the trade. The picture above is borrowed from Google Maps — the original records didn't survive the move east three years later.
Where forty-seven years started
First Ontario home. Ground-source heat, when nobody else was doing it.
After the 1982 recession ended the Alberta chapter, we relocated to Ontario. The first build here was a Cape Cod near Blue Springs Golf Club in Acton — the popular design at the time. We built several more like it through Acton, Rookwood, and Guelph.
This was also the first home where we installed a ground-source heat pump. People thought it was strange. Forty years later, the government gives grants to install them.
First Ontario build · First geothermal install
First home with radiant floor heating. Standard in every build since.
After multiple builds using ground-source and air-source heat pumps for energy savings, hydronic radiant floor heating arrived in our work. Radiant was a novelty in Ontario in the early 1990s — most homes were still on forced air, and the few exceptions were electric.
The reveal moment was the first winter walking on warm floors. Every home we have built since has had radiant. Thirty-four years and counting.
First radiant install · Set the standard since 1991
First ICF home. BLUEMAX forms. The template for everything since.
The pioneering ICF build happened on County Road 2 in the Township of Blue Mountain. We used BLUEMAX forms — a trailblazing system in early Canadian ICF. This was the first time we combined Insulated Concrete Form walls with radiant floor heating in the same build.
That combination is still the spine of every home we put up. Continuous insulation, mass walls, low-temperature radiant. Quiet inside. Stable temperatures. Heating bills that surprise people in a good way. This was the build that set the template.
First ICF + radiant combination in our portfolioThe expansion era. Over 150 custom homes across the region.
From 1996 onward, ICF gained real traction in Southern Ontario. We expanded with it. Over those eight years, the company built more than 150 custom homes across Hamilton, Kitchener, Guelph, Acton, Georgetown, Collingwood, Wasaga Beach, Barrie, and Toronto.
Most of those builds featured the now-standard ICF-plus-radiant combination. Some years we had eight builds going. Some years ten. The busiest years had fifteen on the books at once. It was a productive era — and the era that taught us why we eventually pulled back.
The vintage video captures a slice of these homes from the late 1990s. It's grainy by modern standards — shot on consumer video gear of the time — but it's real footage of the real homes that built the practice. We keep it on the page because the proof matters more than the production value.
150+ homes · 9 cities · Peak volume years
The basement-pool house. No wood used anywhere.
A specific build worth its own entry. The owner wanted an indoor basement pool. The structural and humidity challenges of doing that properly are not trivial — mishandled basement pools become mold farms.
The solution: a home built entirely without wood. ICF walls, steel studs, durable finishes throughout. We engineered the humidity control and fresh-air circulation specifically for the pool environment. It worked. The home is still standing, still dry, and the pool still functions as designed.
All-ICF + steel build · Engineered humidity control
The last Toronto build before the Georgian Bay decision.
By 2004, the practice had completed well over a hundred custom homes. The volume was sustainable, but the kind of work we were doing was getting harder to keep at the standard we wanted. Long drives to multiple active sites. Trade availability stretched thin. Quality control on jobs we weren't physically on every day.
This Toronto build was one of the last in the high-volume era. The following year, the business model changed.
Transition year · Decision to refocus
The Georgian Bay era. Three builds a year, by design.
In 2005, Harvey moved to Tiny Township and the practice refocused. Fewer projects, picked carefully. Three custom builds a year became the operating model — not a limit, a choice. The same crew on every site, from excavation to handover.
Since 2005, we've completed roughly 42 custom homes in Tiny Township alone, plus many more across Collingwood, Wasaga Beach, the Blue Mountains, Stayner, Barrie, Springwater, Oro-Medonte, Midland, Penetanguishene, and Tay. Most owners are building their retirement home or the home they'll live in for the next twenty-plus years. The work is more careful now, not less. It's the era we're in.
42 in Tiny since 2005 · ~3 builds/year by designThe hands-on work.
Construction-process photos from active builds — ICF installs, first-floor pours, radiant manifold setups, framing transitions. The work between the milestones.
Real photos from real builds. No stock imagery, no rendered visualizations.
By the numbers.
Forty-seven years of building, distilled into the metrics that matter for due diligence.
What the practice focuses on today.
The work today is concentrated in Simcoe County and the Georgian Bay region. Three custom builds a year, by design. Mostly retirement and forever homes for owners who plan to be in them for the next twenty-plus years. ICF construction with radiant floor heating remains the default. Hybrid builds (ICF below grade, conventional above) where the lot and budget make sense.
We work with architects who already have plans, with homeowners who have an idea and a lot, and with sophisticated buyers who have spent months researching before the first call. We don't take every project that walks in — not as a brag, just as honesty about what we can do well at three a year.
If your project belongs on this page someday —
Send us your plans for an honest review, book a 15-minute call, or come walk through a finished ICF home in person. The earlier we look at your build, the more we can help.
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