HAWTHORNE RIDGE BUILDERS

This contractor is very personable and likable when you first meet him.  He presents himself with a confidence in his skills, but in realty this contractor appears to have only minimal knowledge of construction practices and materials.  This is his second career and we believe he is a wannabe builder.  He advertised warranties etc on his website, but he doesn't provide warranties.  The testimonials regarding his work on his website are not for him, but rather for other builders who are connected with Amwood Custom Homes. 

He is not only extremely sloppy in his workmanship, but he will not keep the site clean.  We lived with over filled dumpsters and plastic and paper blowing all over the neighborhood and into the lake.   You will have to be ready and able to keep the site picked up yourself if you in an area with restrictions.   If you contract with him you must watch him at every turn and you must be ready to do much of  the coordination of subcontractors. Be sure to go over his draw requests with a fine tooth comb.  He tried to rush the last draw through even though the house was not complete, telling usthat  if we would sign it he would "settle up with us later".  Not!!!!   Fortunately, in our case, we were on alert by this time, but unfortunately we should have paid closer attention earlier in the project. Subcontractors should be paid first on the draw requests, and we know of at least 2 subs who were left out of draw request even though their invoices were submitted well in advance of the draw.  Again.....be very careful.

Do not trust him to do what he says he is going to do when he says he will do it.  When you request something from him, if he rolls his eyes towards the heavens, his answer will most likely be a falsehood.  He presents himself as a very likable good old boy, so be on guard. When something goes wrong, he won't actually verbalize that it is someone elses falt, but he is  adept at steering you toward blaming someone else for his mistakes.  Ie:  He let us think the kitchen planner was at fault, but the realty was that he built the soffit to short.  If you discover his mistakes, he will tell you he "is on it", but that translates to "He will wait until you give up because you are exhausted from trying to get him to do what he is supposed to do".  We had to fight for just about everything.  We settled for some things such as the siding because we had to choose our battles so to speak.  I  believe if you are building a new home, you could subcontract it yourself and save yourself all of the grief.  Just an absolutely horrible experience.

I think if you are purchasing a "dealer" home from Amwood through Hawthorne Ridge you might possibly have a better result, as I believe Amwood has their own carpenters etc.. However if you are relying on Jack Roller's skills for any finish work, buyer beware.  He had one employee who was roofer, sider & trim carpenter.  This man admitted he was not a trim carpenter.  Jack's office employee was also on the site some of the time, but other than that he doesn't have roof, siding, trim crews.  Jack, one employee & an office worker filling in....that was the whole crew, which explains why we had to do so much of the work ourselve  I guess.