Custom Homes

A custom home begins with what the lot allows: the zone, the overlays, the slope, the trees the city protects, how a fire engine reaches the front door, where the water comes from and where the waste goes. On a flat city lot those answers are short. On a hillside, in the coastal zone, in a community standards district or on acreage with a private road, they are the design. We read all of it before a plan is drawn, design within it, coordinate the structural work with a licensed engineer, and manage the reviews to permit. Our work is residential, up to two stories.

The old house burned in the Woolsey Fire. Some permit language called the work a rebuild; physically it was a new house, designed to fit the County’s rebuild and lot-coverage framework and the Coastal Development Permit exemption process. County Planning advised that the revised coverage could work within 3,176 square feet; the house itself carried 2,687 square feet of coverage, and a pergola came down from 1,066 to 567 square feet to make the numbers work. Building and Safety approved the building plans on April 7, 2022, with agency clearances still outstanding. The last of those was septic: the health reviewer counted bedroom equivalents, and an office with a door and a closet counted as one, so the layout was revised and the bedroom count reduced in January 2023. Construction was reported under way in December 2024, with structural details and a 400-amp service coordinated through 2025.

On a vacant parcel in the Acton Community Standards District, the owner’s program was a 3,273-square-foot home with a 4,000-square-foot barn and horse facilities. The planner’s December 2025 comments set the site: 40-foot road dedications on the south and west and the house at least 50 feet from the road, which put the building 90 feet from the south property line. Because the barn is larger than the home, the County does not treat it as accessory; it has to meet the commercial design standards in Acton CSD section 22.302.060, subsection C, with a real floor plan showing stalls and tack. By July 2026 the planner called the corrected plans approvable, and in August County staff corrected the stamps on the planning-approved plot plans. Since then the work has been legal access across two intervening parcels, the address, the septic design and the soils and grading requirements. No building permit yet; this is what the planning stage of a rural home looks like.

The house that burned in the Eaton Fire is not the house the family wanted back. The new single-story home sits differently on the lot, with an L-shaped detached ADU set for privacy and the site regraded to replace a large retaining wall with balanced cut and fill. Regional Planning cleared the recovery application in July 2025; Building and Safety accepted the plans September 2, 2025; and when the County’s own floor-area figures did not agree across the plans, the permit descriptions and the planning approval, we brought the planner and the building staff into one exchange and asked for supervisory review. The County issued the building permits on January 30, 2026, 150 calendar days from plan-check acceptance, and the house is in construction. The full record is case study 3.

• The site read first: zone, overlays, slope, protected trees, fire access and hazard zone, coastal or community standards district review, utilities and septic, legal access.
• The program fitted to the site, not the other way around: footprint, height from natural grade, retaining walls, where the garage sits.
• Structural coordination with a licensed engineer from the first massing, so the foundation and retaining walls are designed once.
• The reviews run in the right order: planning, design review where it applies, health for septic, fire for access, then building.
• Plan check managed to issuance, every area figure reconciled across every document.

Can you design a custom home on a hillside lot?

Yes, within two stories. Hillside work means slope analysis, grading and soils review, retaining walls designed with the engineer, and, in the Mulholland corridor and the Baseline Hillside Ordinance area, a design review with its own measurements.

What does septic have to do with the floor plan?

The health reviewer counts bedroom equivalents to size the system, and a room with a door and a closet counts as a bedroom. On a septic lot, the floor plan and the leach field are designed together.

How long does a custom home take to permit?

Longer than any other residential project, because planning, design review, health, fire and building each have a turn. A fire rebuild in the coastal zone reached approved building plans in about 19 months; an Acton house with a barn has been in planning since 2025.

Do you design rebuilds after a fire?

Yes. The Eaton Fire rebuilds have their own page.