When you work with us, you receive comprehensive home design and construction expertise for your lot.
We design beautiful homes and manage the construction by licensed experts. Get a new home built from the ground up in Charlottesville, VA, using eco-friendly materials and premium finishes.
We have been turning dreams into reality for over 15 years through quality craftsmanship and designs tailored to your lifestyle. Our local builders understand Charlottesville’s building codes and architectural requirements and can build a home that fits the area. Experience attention to detail in everything from layout to ceiling design, backed by a 2-10 year structural warranty.
We don’t use preset plans and create a tailored home interior or exterior for comfortable living.
We stand by our word and do our best to complete the design and construction of your home within the quoted timeline.
MCH offers a 1-year builder’s warranty and a 2-10 structural warranty for every custom home building project to provide long-term value.
Our exhaustive pre-construction process pairs you with a dedicated designer to lock in every specification before a single shovel hits the ground — so your dream home gets built exactly the way you envisioned it.
Every McMahon home is built for efficiency and durability — featuring Trane XL17I HVAC units, AeroBarrier air sealing, and ERV ventilation, installed through trusted partners including TK Design & Associates, Foster Plumbing, P&M Electrical, and Cross Timbers Roofing.
We are a luxury home builder in Charlottesville, VA, designing premium homes that deliver a high-end living experience.
Custom homes can sometimes exceed budget expectations, but we focus on maintaining affordability by using durable, cost-effective materials.
Energy efficiency is a priority as we work with you to select the right design features and construction materials.
McMahon Custom Homes proudly serves the entire Charlottesville County area, including the following specific locations:
Whether you’re located in the heart of Charlottesville or one of its beautiful rural areas, our team is ready to assist you with expert home building and remodeling services.
Work with a licensed and insured custom home builder in Charlottesville, VA, to bring your vision to life.
We serve families, landowners, and buyers across Charlottesville who want to avoid competitive bidding wars. We build unique homes on your lot in Belmont, Barracks Road, Fifeville, and throughout Charlottesville with precise craftsmanship.
Most of our custom homes run $200 to $375 per heated square foot, not including land. On a 2,500 square foot home that is roughly $500,000 to $937,500, and most projects land in the lower half of that band. The top of it is reserved for high end selections, premium exteriors, and complicated rooflines.
Where you fall inside that range comes down to size, your lot, what the house is wrapped in, and how it is finished inside. Lot conditions in Albemarle County matter more than most people expect. Slope, soil, well depth, and how far utilities have to travel can move a budget by tens of thousands before a nail is driven.
Rather than guess, run our cost calculator. Ten questions, about two minutes, and you get a real range built from the line item costs of homes we have actually finished.
Fixed price. Once your plan is drawn and your selections are made, we price the home and that price holds. You will not get a change order because lumber moved or a subcontractor raised his rate mid build.
That is a deliberate choice, and it is not the industry norm around here. Cost plus moves the risk of every price swing onto you, and it means you do not actually know your number until the house is finished. We carry that risk instead. The tradeoff is that we have to do more work up front, which is why our pre construction planning happens before a shovel hits the ground rather than during construction.
The only things that move a fixed price are changes you ask for and a small number of allowances, chiefly the well, which is budgeted at the top of its range with unspent money credited back to you.
Plan on twelve to eighteen months from first conversation to keys.
That breaks into roughly three to five months of pre construction, where we handle design, the soil evaluation and septic design, well siting, survey, engineering, and permits, and then eight to twelve months of construction depending on the size and complexity of the home.
Albemarle County permitting is the piece most likely to stretch that timeline, which is covered in its own question below.
Permit timelines in Albemarle County typically run longer than in neighboring jurisdictions. Plan on three to six months for a standard residential building permit, depending on the complexity of your plans and the county's current review backlog.
Site specific factors add time on top of that. Well and septic approvals have to clear the health department, entrance permits come from VDOT, and zoning review runs on its own schedule. Any one of them can hold up the whole package.
Josh McMahon has navigated Albemarle County permitting firsthand and builds realistic timelines into every pre construction plan. That matters more than it sounds. A builder who assumes a six week permit and starts pricing lumber accordingly hands you a schedule that was never achievable, and you absorb the cost of the delay. We plan for the county we actually have.
The permitting clock also runs in parallel with work you would be doing anyway, which is why our pre construction phase is three to five months rather than three to five weeks.
Custom homes are financed with a construction loan rather than a standard mortgage. You make interest only payments on the money drawn so far, and funds release in stages as the work progresses. Most lenders want a 680 or better credit score, ten to twenty percent down, and detailed plans and a budget before they will commit.
That last requirement is the one that catches people. You cannot get a construction loan approved without a real budget, which is another reason pre construction planning comes first.
We work with several trusted lenders who know the Central Virginia market, and we are glad to make an introduction. You are also welcome to use your own bank.
Yes, inside and out. Layout, roofing, siding, decks, garages, and every finish selection. We do not build from a fixed catalog of plans.
What we will do is tell you honestly what a given choice costs. Some customizations add real value and some add expense that never comes back to you when you sell. Part of our job is knowing which is which and saying so before you commit.
Both, along with the surrounding rural areas. Most of our Charlottesville area work is on land outside the city limits, which is where the well, septic, driveway, and clearing questions come into play. Those are the same conditions we handle every week in Goochland, Powhatan, and Hanover.
Our baseline for a custom home is around $625,000, and we build up to roughly $3.5 million.
The reason for a floor is arithmetic rather than preference. A well, a septic system, a driveway, permits, a foundation, and a mechanical system cost close to the same on an 1,800 square foot house as on a 3,000 square foot one. Below that baseline you end up paying custom home prices for something that is not really a custom home, and nobody is happy with that outcome.
That said, we are open to the conversation. It depends on timing, location, expectations, and what is on our schedule. We would rather tell you straight in a fifteen minute call than have you find out four months in.
