Work record / Development / Santa Monica house
A 7,000 square foot Santa Monica home, finished through 2020
When California's stay-home order hit mid-build, the subcontractors stopped confirming dates. I planned around whether crews would show up, not around the legal question, and the owner's contract never reopened.
The seat
I was Chief Executive Officer of Tellus Design and Build, which I had run since 2004. This was a job like many others, until March 2020.
| Sector | Residential construction |
|---|---|
| Type of work | Construction delivery under a crew constraint |
| Where | Santa Monica, California |
| Years | 2020 |
| How long | Most of 2020 |
| Through | Tellus Design and Build |
| Credits | Common Ground Jesse Fowler, Chief Executive Officer, Tellus Design and Build |
What I was brought in to decide
Tellus Design and Build held the contract for a 7,000 square foot custom home in Santa Monica, built for a private homeowner. It was mid-build when California's stay-home order arrived in March 2020. For the firm it was not an unusual job.
Construction was listed as essential within the week, which let the site stay open legally. The subcontractor crews our schedule rested on stopped confirming dates all the same. No one refused. People weighed closed schools and their own risk and simply stayed home, and a schedule written in January was no longer true.
What we did
- I set the legal question aside and planned around the physical one: would the crews really come?
- Ahead of every phase I confirmed the crew directly with the subcontractor, by name and date, and stopped trusting a schedule written before the shutdown.
- I sorted every open phase by the scarce input it needed. Some needed a license: structural framing, rough mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Others needed a skill: coordination, fixtures, hardware, trim and finish carpentry.
- Each licensed phase ran as soon as a confirmed crew allowed, with buffer behind it, and we kept a second subcontractor warm on every licensed trade.
- For months I did the skill-bound finish work myself. I also put coordination, inspections and owner communication in one person's hands, so the job needed fewer people to be available to keep moving.
- I logged my own hours against the original budgeted value of each phase, so the accounting for the job still showed the work done.
- I never reopened the owner's schedule. The contractor's plan absorbed the disruption, and the homeowner was spared it.
Results
- The house, all 7,000 square feet of it, was finished, and the contract never reopened. In a year when many owners were asked for a new date or a new dollar figure, this owner was asked for neither.
- The contractor carried the cost, not the owner. It was months of the chief executive's hours spent on one house instead of the pipeline, booked against each phase so the accounting stayed honest.
- The license-or-skill sort became a reusable tool. An owner, developer or contractor can run it on the remaining scope whenever a crew goes quiet.
The lesson
Protect the licensed work with timing and a second sub kept warm. Do the skill-bound work yourself, for months if needed. Book your hours against each phase, and leave the owner's schedule alone.
Stories from this work
Questions about Santa Monica house, answered
Firm record
Common Ground keeps its own account of this engagement: Santa Monica house on the Common Ground wiki.