Our experience with Ritz was one of the most professionally satisfying experiences we've ever had. After designing and building no less than four homes as we traversed the country, first in the Navy and then in civilian life, we like to think we learned something about good design, permitting and construction practices. The professionals at Ritz have, in our mind, re-defined the standard of excellence for us. We built a two-car garage with a small granny flat apartment above it; certainly not one of Ritz's high dollar projects, but you wouldn't know it by the attention given our project from start to finish from every member of the design and construction teams. Many know, at least intuitively if not by experience, that the most important part of any construction project is the foundation. If it isn't plumb and square then nothing else that follows will be either. Sure, a good framing crew can cover up foundation mistakes, but that wasn't the case here. The foundation was perfect (I had it independently checked). And the framing crew? Absolutely the very best I've ever had the pleasure of working on any of my aforementioned four homes. I can say the same for the electrician, mason, painter and on and on. I learned long ago you can tell a lot about a company and in this case a construction team by how clean they keep the construction 'zone' during the day and how they leave it at the end of the day. Not only is it a sign of pride they have in their work, but it is an indicator of how the workers think about their own safety and that of the homeowner. On our last home project, I had to 'get after' the company owner several times for the project not meeting my safety and cleanliness standards. For our Ritz project, I never had to make that call. As I told Ed, the owner of Ritz, his subcontractors, many of whom have been with him for several years (which is almost unheard of in this business) are his competitive advantage over all the other build/design firms in SD. Truth be told, we don't refer to the team that worked on our project as subcontractors; to us they were no less than expert craftsmen. Did the project go perfectly, without flaws? Of course not. I've never had a home build go perfectly, but this one was closer than all the others. Ed was active, engaged and committed to making it right. One of the mistakes was, admittedly ours. In trying to save some money we insisted on a cheaper shower product installation only to have to agree late in the project we were wrong. He had every right to charge us for not only the demolition of the old plastic shower, but then to 'stick it to us' for the new tile installation, especially since our 'change order' delayed the overall project schedule. He surprised us with his generosity and desire to make sure we were satisfied. We are big fans of Ritz and the people behind the logo. We've told Ed and his team to use us as references. We can provide no better recommenda