About Mulvey Construction

BUILDING
on
SUCCESS

They' ve built some of  Southern  California's most  desirable  homes. They  cater to an  elite clientele, including  celebrities and  CEOs. Their  efforts have  helped shape neighborhoods in some of San Diego's most exclusive communities. They are San Diego's elite custom home  builders  the creme de  la  creme of  the construction  trade. They  work  with  top architects  and designers  to  create masterpieces customized to suit  their clients' every whim.

Unlike most builders, those specializing  in million  or multi-million  dollar  homes seldom advertise, relying instead on sterling reputations and referrals from  within a select circle of high-profile clients. Who are these builders? Where do you find them?

Decor & Style lifts the veil on this select enclave. After  surveying  top architects, designers and builders for recommendations, we've chosen four of our community's top custom home builders to profile in this month's edition.

DOUGLAS MULVEY

I love building," says Douglas Mulvey, a twenty-year veteran  home builder who specializes in Rancho Santa Fe estates. "We haven't  built  anything outside  there in ten years, except my own home," says Mulvey,  a former  Rancho Santa Fe resident  who  now  resides in a stone-and-wood beach house in Del Mar designed to give every bedroom a fabulous ocean view.

Mulvey is best known for traditional ranch-style and Mediterranean residences but also has 
built contemporary-style homes. "We  finished one a  year ago  that is 12,000 square feet with an  indoor  Olympic-sized  swimming  pool and 10,000 square feet of  limestone  inside and out, very  contemporary, with  lots of  glass butted into columns," he says when asked to name one of his  most outstanding or unusual projects.

Homes built by Mulvey are  typically over a million dollars, with many  projects in the multi-million dollar range. He builds only four homes a year, on  average. Mulvey builds primarily custom homes but on occasion constructs houses on speculation (spec homes) to sell.

Mulvey works with a variety of different architects, notably  Alex Friehauf and  Bill Heyer. He also  works closely with  interior  designers  such as Sue Kelly of fair-banks Interiors, Robert and Damian Tuggey of  Tuggey Interior Design in La Jolla.

He  obtains  clients  exclusively  through referrals. "Our clients generally come to us," he says. "We are very selective. I don't want to get any larger  than  we are right  now. I  don't like working for unhappy people, so they've got to have a nice  project  that can catch my interest and they've got to be  nice people." He adds,  "We  enjoy building…our  main  focus  is  not  making  money.  It's completing projects and  making people happy." The  company wil work on either a  time-and materials  basis or on a  traditional  fixed  bid, depending upon client preference.

Asked what advice he would offer property owners seeking a high-end custom homebuilder, Mulvey  replies, "Certainly  check people  they've  built for, but make positive  that you can personally get along with the builder. You have to both be comfortable with the relationship and everything should go just fine."

Douglas Mulvey
Custom Builder
P.O. Box 8606
Rancho Santa Fe, CA
92076