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1450 Greene St Suite 555
Augusta , GA 30901
J-Mar Builders & Services, Inc. was begun in 1989 as a partnership between experienced house framer Jon Barnhart and another Augusta builder. Within four years, Barnhart purchased full ownership and began to move the company from a mix of speculative and custom projects to almost 100% contract, custom work.
With a focus on custom new home construction, the firm builds primarily along the riverfront in Augusta and in high-end subdivisions in the West Augusta area. Average project budgets range from $300,000 to $1 million or more.
In addition to the residential work, the company actively buys and renovates historic commercial properties in Barnhart's hometown of Louisville. The firm completes one of those projects each year, and currently owns six downtown buildings. Barnhart says this work helps his team to learn and practice special processes they can later use in homebuilding, such as the application of a modern version of horse-hair plaster, a rough-textured plastering technique from the 1800s.
J-Mar Builders & Services, Inc. takes on about 20 projects a year, and generally has about eight projects underway. The staff includes three superintendents who visit and work at the sites every day. Barnhart works directly with the clients.
Barnhart says an interest in building runs in his family. "My grandfather was a builder and then my sister married a house framer... I started working with him when I was 15, and it was like a duck hitting water."
Expanding the family connections, Barnhart's wife, Traci, plays a key role in the firm's office administration. The couple has three young children, including a baby born in 2004.
"Trust. I think it's all about trust. We do not lie to any customer. I tell all customers we are human and we will make mistakes - if you see something wrong, let us know and we will fix it."
Barnhart says that because of the poor reputation of builders as a field, many clients are skeptical. But by the second month of the building process, he sees client attitudes changing. "By then, they know they can trust us."
Another reason, Barnhart says, is that the J-Mar crew keeps a very clean job site. As a rule, they don't drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, blare radios or use obscene language - which is different than the behavior of some other building crews.
"I'm pretty proud of our 100% recommendation rate, but I would have been disappointed if we hadn't gotten that. If we cannot build your house and still be friends, I'd rather not build your house."
Most of the firm's clients are at least middle-aged, with many having have built before, Barnhart says. Many are building a home they intend to live in through retirement, so they are looking for less square footage and more custom features.
Barnhart says he communicates frequently with his clients through telephone calls, email messages, and meetings at the building site. "We had one customer who was retired and set up a lawn chair and an umbrella and sat outside at the site every day while his house was built. I loved it. I like when people are involved."
The company generally follows a design-build process. "When I first meet with a customer I ask them to show me the plans and pictures from magazines that they like, then we work with an architect to put those ideas together. Everything we do is very custom."
"We are developing a website, but right now our marketing is 100% word-of-mouth, Barnhart says. "When a potential client contacts us, I print out a list of the last 10 clients who we worked with. We don't cherry-pick the best 10. We give them the last 10. I encourage everyone to do that with any builder, check the references."
The superintendents at J-Mar Builders & Services, Inc. use a PalmPilot checklist/punchlist program each day at the site, and then use HotSync to transfer the information to Barnhart's computer at day's end.
"We're always trying to educate the customer on what to expect in the building process," Barnhart says. "We do detailed construction schedules with estimated start dates for framing, plumbing, everything... and typically we end within two weeks of the estimated completion day."
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Barnhart says he sees learning as a continual process for builders. He and his staff attend homebuilder shows, participate in seminars, and share information about new products and processes at weekly staff meetings.
Barnhart says he and his job superintendents (and their wives/families) all socialize together and help each other. They recently rented cabins together for a fishing trip in the mountains. The company also offers retirement plans and will provide help with construction when a long-time staff member is building a personal home.
"We all enjoy what we're doing. We've chosen this as our profession, and most of us have been doing it for 15 or 20 years."
Barnhart says the company has purchased some infill lots in exclusive neighborhoods with plans to build a mix of spec and custom homes in the $1 million range. He'd like to showcase features that would be unusual for the Augusta market, such as wine cellars and outdoor kitchens. "That would be rare for this market, but I think it's a niche we can fill," Barnhart says.