Building a custom home in Dallas usually doesn’t start with an empty field. It starts with a tired 1950s ranch on a good street in Lakewood, or a 1970s house in Preston Hollow whose lot is worth more than the structure. MASACO Construction is a woman-led design-build firm based in Plano, and we take that project from the first walk of the lot through demolition, design, permitting, construction, and the final walkthrough. You see the whole house in 3D before it’s priced, you get one project manager and a written photo update every week, and the number on your proposal is the number we build to.
Building new on an old lot: the Dallas infill reality.
Most of the custom homes going up inside Dallas are teardown rebuilds. The established neighborhoods people want, Lakewood, Preston Hollow, Lake Highlands, University Park, Highland Park, and the M Streets, were built out decades ago, and the land underneath has appreciated faster than the houses on it. When a modest mid-century house sits on a lot zoned for something much larger, the math tips toward starting over. Parts of Kessler Park, Casa Linda, Oak Cliff, and Far North Dallas are following the same pattern.
Infill construction is its own discipline. You’re building between occupied houses on a lot with mature trees, existing utility taps, and neighbors who care about what the new house looks like from the sidewalk. The city cares too. Dallas’s tree ordinance, residential setback and height rules, and, in some areas, conservation-district or historic overlay review all shape what can be built. The Park Cities run their own building departments with their own standards. We build to those rules from the first sketch instead of redrawing later.
What we look at before you buy or demolish.
If you haven’t closed on the lot yet, bring us in before you do. If you already own it, this is still the first step. A lot evaluation covers:
- Zoning and setbacks. Front, side, and rear setbacks, maximum height, and lot coverage determine the buildable envelope. Corner lots and irregular lots in Kessler Park and Oak Cliff need a careful read of the survey.
- Easements and utilities. Where the sewer tap, water line, gas, and electric service enter the lot, and whether any easement crosses where you’d want to build.
- Trees. Dallas protects trees above certain sizes, and removal can require mitigation. A big live oak in the middle of the lot will shape the floor plan.
- Soil and drainage. North Texas clay expands and shrinks with moisture, which drives foundation design. We look at how the lot drains and whether a geotechnical report is warranted before the engineer designs the slab.
- The existing house. On a teardown, what’s there affects the demolition permit, asbestos survey requirements on older structures, and utility disconnect sequencing.
- Review overlays. Conservation districts, historic overlays, and HOAs add review steps and sometimes design rules, and we’d rather know that on day one.
You get a written summary of what the lot can carry and what will complicate it, before you spend money on design.
Design-build or architect-then-bid: an honest comparison.
There are 2 common ways to get a custom home designed and built, and we’ll work either way.
Architect-then-bid. You hire an architect, pay for a full drawing set, then send it to several builders for pricing. The upside is independent design. The risk is that the drawings come back priced well above what you planned, and you pay to redraw. It also puts you in the middle when the architect and the builder disagree on site.
Design-build. MASACO handles design and construction under one agreement. Cost is checked at each design milestone, so the 3D model you approve is a house that’s already been priced. One point of accountability, no gap between the drawings and the number.
If you already have an architect you love, bring them. We’ll coordinate design development with them, price the drawings as they progress, and take the project through construction. Our general construction hub explains how we structure that relationship.
Seeing the whole house in 3D before it’s priced.
On a remodel, 3D visualization shows you one room. On a custom home, it shows you everything: the front elevation from the street, the way afternoon light hits the kitchen, the sightline from the entry to the back yard, the height of the ceilings in the primary suite. You walk through it on screen and change what doesn’t work.
This is also where exterior materials get decided. In University Park or Highland Park, a new house sits between homes with a strong architectural vocabulary, and the model lets you test brick versus stone, window proportions, and roof pitch against what’s around you before a single order is placed. In a conservation district, the rendered elevations become part of the review packet.
Budgeting by phase, and where the money actually goes.
A custom home budget is easier to manage when it’s broken into the phases the build actually follows. Our proposals are organized that way:
- Pre-construction. Design, engineering, surveys, permits, and any demolition.
- Foundation. Site prep, forms, plumbing rough-in under the slab, and a post-tension or conventional slab per the engineer.
- Framing and dry-in. Framing, roof decking and covering, windows, exterior doors, and house wrap.
- Mechanical rough-ins. HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and low voltage.
- Exterior. Brick or stone, siding, trim, gutters, and garage doors.
- Interior finishes. Insulation, drywall, cabinetry, tile, flooring, paint, trim, plumbing and lighting fixtures, and appliances.
- Completion. Driveways and flatwork, landscaping and irrigation, final clean, final inspections, and the certificate of occupancy.
Seeing the budget by phase tells you where a decision has consequences. Moving a wall costs little at phase 1 and a great deal at phase 4. It also lets us give you a realistic draw schedule if you’re building with a construction loan.
Selections and allowances without the chaos.
Selections are where custom home projects go sideways: hundreds of decisions, long lead times, and a budget that quietly creeps. We manage it 2 ways.
First, allowances. Every selection category in your proposal carries a stated allowance so we can fix the price before every item is chosen. Second, a selections schedule. Our design team walks you through cabinetry, countertops, tile, flooring, plumbing fixtures, lighting, hardware, and appliances in the order the build needs them, with a running tally against each allowance. Long-lead items like windows and cabinets get locked early so they don’t hold up framing or drywall. Nothing is ordered until you sign off.
A schedule you can believe, and the inspections behind it.
We’d rather give you a realistic schedule than an optimistic one. Design and permitting on a custom home commonly take several months, longer in the Park Cities or where conservation-district review applies. Construction on a typical single-family home tends to run a year or so, depending on size, complexity, weather, and selection lead times. Teardowns add demolition and utility work up front.
Inspections set the rhythm of the build. In Dallas, a new house typically passes through foundation, framing, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical rough-in, insulation, and final inspections, with energy code inspections by a third party along the way, before the city issues a certificate of occupancy. We schedule each one, confirm the work is ready before the inspector arrives, and don’t move to the next phase until the current one passes. Every result shows up in your weekly update.
How we price it.
Your proposal is a fixed-scope, phase-by-phase document, not an estimate that grows. It lists the work in each phase, the allowances for each selection category, the engineering and permit costs, and the schedule.
Stay within an allowance and the price holds. Choose above it and you pay only the documented difference. Anything outside the scope, whether you decide to add a covered patio or the demolition uncovers something the survey didn’t show, becomes a written change order with a price and a schedule impact you approve before the work proceeds. That discipline is what lets us hand you one number and mean it.
One project manager, one weekly update, one final walkthrough.
From demolition to final clean, one MASACO project manager owns your build. Every week you get a written update with photos: what happened, what’s next, what inspections passed, and any decision we need from you. You’re never guessing where the project stands.
When the house is complete, we walk it with you room by room and write down every item on a punch list, then close that list before final payment. You leave with a care guide for the finishes and systems in the house and a single point of contact afterward. The full sequence is on our process page.
Custom homes across Dallas-Fort Worth.
We build custom homes throughout the metro from our headquarters in Plano, where teardown activity in older subdivisions is picking up, and in Fort Worth, which has its own development department and historic districts. If your existing house has good bones and a workable footprint, our whole-home remodeling page covers the alternative to starting over, and a home addition may get you the space without a rebuild. For a builder to run the whole project alongside other work on the property, start with general contracting. Completed work is on our projects page.
Whether you own the lot, are about to, or are trying to decide between a rebuild and a remodel, book a consultation and we’ll walk the property with you, give you an honest read on what it can carry, and map out what a custom home would take. Contact MASACO Construction to get on the calendar. Think Massive. Build Smart.
What's included.
- Lot evaluation covering zoning, setbacks, easements, trees, drainage, and soil
- Teardown and rebuild on infill lots, including demolition permits and utility disconnects
- Architectural design and whole-house 3D visualization you approve before pricing
- Structural and foundation engineering for North Texas clay soils
- Phase-by-phase budgeting with written allowances for every selection category
- Permitting with City of Dallas Development Services or the Park Cities building departments
- Selections coordination for cabinetry, tile, flooring, plumbing, lighting, and hardware
- Scheduling and passing every inspection from foundation through final
- One project manager with weekly written photo updates
- Final walkthrough, punch list, and a care guide for the finished home
How the project runs.
- Consultation and lot walk. We meet you on the lot, whether it holds a house you plan to tear down or nothing yet. We look at the survey, zoning, tree ordinance implications, drainage, and neighboring rooflines, and we talk candidly about budget range and how long the whole thing realistically takes.
- Design and whole-house 3D visualization. Floor plans and elevations become a full 3D model of the house you can walk through room by room. You settle the layout, ceiling heights, window placement, and exterior materials here, where a change is a few clicks instead of a demolished wall.
- Phased budget and fixed-scope proposal. We price the approved design by phase, from demolition and foundation through framing, mechanicals, and finishes, with allowances stated for every selection category. You get one written scope, one schedule, and one price, and every change afterward is a signed change order.
- Engineering, permits, and demolition. We coordinate the structural engineer, file with City of Dallas Development Services or the Park Cities departments, and handle HOA or conservation-district review. On a teardown, we pull the demolition permit, disconnect utilities, and clear the lot before the foundation crew arrives.
- Build, inspections, and final walkthrough. One project manager runs the build from foundation to final clean, scheduling and passing each inspection in sequence and sending you a written photo update every week. We walk the finished house with you, close the punch list, and hand over your care guide.
