Potomac
Custom home builders for Potomac's biggest lots. The lot comes first.
Half-acre to two-acre lots, 1960s houses sitting on them. We buy and build on lots like these every year for the new homes we sell. Bring us your parcel and we will tell you what it will support, then design and build the new home start to finish.
Half-acre to two-acre lots, 1960s houses sitting on them. We buy and build on lots like these every year for the new homes we sell. Bring us your parcel and we will tell you what it will support, then design and build the new home start to finish.
Potomac has a math problem most neighborhoods would envy. The lots run from half an acre to two acres. The houses on them mostly date from the 1960s through the 1980s: colonials, ramblers, split-levels that were the right house for their decade and are the wrong house for yours. When the land is worth more than the structure, the structure's days are numbered, and for much of Potomac's housing stock the assessment records already say so.
The real Potomac question is rarely whether to renovate or move. It is what the lot can support, and what it costs to find out. A two-acre parcel near the Churchill or Wootton school clusters (verify your exact assignment, boundaries shift) can carry a house you'd otherwise drive to Great Falls to find. The same parcel can also hide a septic field that caps your bedroom count, a well that needs testing before you draw a single plan, or a forest conservation easement that moves your footprint forty feet. Some pockets of Potomac sit outside the public sewer envelope entirely. None of that is a problem. All of it is homework, and it has to come before the floor plan.
That homework is our day job. We're a design-build firm, one team covering both the drawings and the construction, building in Bethesda, Kensington, and across Montgomery County since 2007. Kevin Slezak, the owner, has run every project personally, more than 200 homes so far. Each year we also buy teardown lots and build 5 to 10 new homes on them to sell, and before we buy, we run the same evaluation you need on your parcel: what the county will permit, what the dirt and utilities will cost, what the finished house is worth. Bring us a Potomac lot and you get that read before design starts.
You can come to us with your architect's finished drawings, a plan you bought online, or nothing but a parcel and a rough list of rooms. All three have produced finished homes.
Built across the county Potomac runs through. Ask for addresses.
We have been building across Montgomery County and DC since 2007, from Bethesda and Kensington to a modern home in our Houzz portfolio just minutes up the Pike from Potomac Village. Every one of those projects went through the same permit office, the same inspectors, the same stormwater rules, and the same subcontractor pool as yours will.
What matters more than the address is the lot judgment. Because we buy the lots for the new homes we build and sell each year, a bad read on a parcel is a mistake we would have to live with ourselves. When we walk your Potomac lot and tell you the grading will be the big line item, or that the setbacks favor a side-load garage, that read comes from years of buying and building on parcels like it.
The houses themselves have held up to professional scrutiny: when a construction-consulting president hired us for his own family's home, he put his own inspectors on the job. "I retained personnel to ensure that no shortcuts were being made… I can say with no reservations that Kevin Slezak excelled in all areas." - D. Hatwell, President, AEGIS Construction Consultants.
The strongest build-on-your-lot market in the county. Run the numbers.
In Bethesda, a teardown buyer competes for quarter-acre lots. In Potomac, the same money buys land, often four to eight times as much of it. A dated rambler on two acres might trade around $1M with nearly all of that value in the ground. Put a new 5,000-plus-square-foot house on that parcel and the finished property competes with anything in the 20854 zip code, because new construction on acreage is what Potomac buyers can't find. The spread between land cost and finished value is wider here than almost anywhere in the county, which is why we call Potomac one of the county's strongest build-on-your-lot markets.
Our new Potomac homes, roughly 5,000 to 7,000 square feet.
Custom work historically, additions to full homes.
A construction contract and detailed budget agreed before work begins.
If you already own the rambler, the math gets better: you've already won the hardest part, the land. The question becomes what the lot allows: zoning setbacks, septic capacity if you're off sewer, well yield, tree save areas, the driveway and grading work that acreage demands. We map all of it before design starts, and we walk you through the demolition-to-delivery sequence on our teardown and rebuild page, including the same-footprint waterfront rebuild we carried through county environmental permitting when the rules left no margin at all.
Costs stay on the table the whole way. Our custom projects have historically ranged from $350K to $3M+, and we'll tell you early which end of that range your lot and wishlist point to. The construction contract comes after design, with finish materials and allowances settled, so you always know what you're paying for. Clients have told us that structure is why they hired us.
What we build in Potomac. Pick your starting point.
- Custom homes - your lot, your program, designed and built by one team.
- Teardown and rebuild - the Potomac specialty. Replace the dated house; keep the address, the trees, and the school assignment.
- Design-build - drawings and construction under one roof, so nothing gets lost between architect and builder.
- Home additions - when the existing house is worth keeping and just needs another level.
- Whole-home remodeling - down-to-the-studs renewal for houses with good bones and dated everything else.
Potomac questions, answered plainly. Ask us the rest.
Is my Potomac rambler a teardown candidate?
Probably, if the land is worth more than the house - true for much of Potomac’s 1960s-80s stock. The real test is what the lot supports: setbacks, septic capacity, well condition, tree save requirements, and grading. We evaluate teardown lots every year for the new homes we build and sell, and we’ll give you the same read on yours: rebuild, add on, or leave it alone. Sometimes the honest answer is the last one.
What does new construction cost in Potomac?
Our custom work has historically run $350K to $3M+, and a full Potomac teardown-rebuild sits at the upper end of that range. What drives it: house size, site work (acreage means longer driveways, more grading, bigger stormwater scope), whether you’re on public sewer or septic, and finish level. We name numbers early, and the contract prices the work line by line from real subcontractor bids, so you can see what each number is made of.
My lot is on well and septic. Does that change the build?
It changes the sequence, not the outcome. Septic capacity is tied to perc tests and approved bedroom count, so we confirm what the county will permit before design starts - not after you’ve fallen for a six-bedroom plan. Wells get tested for yield and quality up front. Pockets of Potomac sit outside the public sewer envelope, and we’ve handled the environmental permitting side of difficult lots before; it’s homework, not a roadblock.
How long does a teardown-rebuild take in Potomac?
Plan in phases: lot evaluation and design first, then county permitting, then demolition and construction. Permitting on septic or environmentally constrained lots takes longer than an in-town Bethesda lot - that’s the trade for the acreage. We give you a construction schedule and a selection schedule from day one, so every choice has a date and nothing stalls the framing crew.
Do you build on your lots or mine?
Both. We buy lots and build 5 to 10 new homes a year to sell, and we build a similar number for clients on their land. In Potomac, your lot is the opportunity: bring us the parcel and we’ll tell you what it can carry.
Tell us about your project. We'll tell you what it takes.
Fill out the short form and we will call you to set up a consultation, or skip the form and call us directly: 443-752-5621.