Imagine a custom home builder capable of radiating such cool confidence in the execution of their finished product that they’re happy to maintain the property long after the completion of the project—impossible? Enter Frankel Design Build. The Frankel experience begins in their exceptional new client-only design showroom, where the firm’s signature scent (none other than luxury brand Loewe’s Tomato Leaves candle) permeates the air and “ends,” so to speak, with enrollment in their home maintenance and management program.
The innovative, multi-award-winning, Houston-based firm recently debuted a swanky new design showroom in the Houston Design District showcasing product vignettes and technologies far exceeding what is available to preview with other custom builders. The showroom brings truly custom features to life, including a full-sized vault door; a custom quartz hydraulics-lift meeting table that doubles as a standing workspace; a 14-foot, sliding glass door system by Mirror Gallery, Inc.; along with herringbone hardwood floors, a full bar with custom metal fabricated details, and Venetian plastered walls.
Clients will find a curated range of selections — from tile, hardware, and plumbing fixtures to lighting, custom cabinetry, and millwork — sourced from trusted industry partners such as Visual Comfort and Ann Sacks, among others. This unique blend of offerings empowers clients to personalize every detail with intention.
For nearly four decades, the Frankel family’s luxury residential home business has maintained a reputation for a client-forward culture. Founded in 1988 by Jim Frankel, sons and current co-presidents Scott and Kevin Frankel are continuing this legacy through their new showroom.
“We are trying to create the best environment for people who design and the best customers to get together and come up with great ideas,” Scott tells CultureMap. “I think it’s a little different for a home builder, particularly a custom home builder, to open up a space that is just for their clients to enhance that experience.”
Each area of the showroom has been outfitted with high-tech A/V equipment that will allow clients to engage with the Frankel team remotely, if need be. “What we’re trying to do, as our clients are busy — they’re active, they’ve got stuff going on in their personal lives, kids, work — we’ve tried to put together a facility that puts together interior design and architecture, and put our clients in a position where they’re able to do this, and they’re not having to run all over town,” says Scott. “It’s a pretty big investment for a home builder to make on the custom side.”
With thousands of tangible samples on-hand, including full-sized door and glass options, the Frankels recognize that keeping up with a showroom of this magnitude will require a lot of management, but it’s not a challenge they’re prepared to shy away from.
“Our interior design team isn’t just helping clients make their selections. They are looking at everything that’s out there and then making sure that this place is curated to building and designing a home right now,” says Kevin. “It has to be a lot of showrooms in one.”
Potential custom home buyers sometimes find themselves apprehensive when exploring the possibility of building homes, mostly due to some illusive bad experience a “friend of a friend” had when working with a builder. Frankel Design Build puts clients at ease through their active flexibility. “This for me is just so different from what custom builders try to do. Typically, what they are doing is going ‘you are limited to this,’” says Scott, noting that anything their team has chosen is already in the budget — there are no surprises.
Ever the realist, Kevin understands that social media can play a large part in determining whether clients stick to their original selections.
“It’s such a long process, and we want people to feel good about it. It just takes more management from us, which we’ve always been willing to do,” he says. “The day after your plan is done, do we expect for you to stop looking at Instagram? We don’t. We have to be flexible. We know you’re looking at Instagram.”
Through their family of companies, which also includes AVEA Pools & Outdoor Living and Frankel Home Care, Frankel Design Build far exceeds what any reasonable person would consider “turn key service.” Once a Frankel home is complete, a user-friendly customer portal through Frankel Home Care allows for home care services to be scheduled at the click of a button.
“Every home that we build, our goal is to help the customer understand that there are certain things that they might need to maintain forever. We don’t just build houses now, we build pools — we have to — and we clean those pools every week. We service generators, we clean gutters, we wash down driveways,” says Scott. “The problem is, you move in, I give you this house, and now what? To live in a house you need a list of people. I don’t want my customer to have to do that. We are in the custom design and service business — we are in the long term care business.”
Photo by Kerry Kirk
Welcome to Frankel Design Build.
MAI newcomer Joseph Collins shops east coast estate sales for items like this rare, hand-signed humidor by Arthur Court.Photo by Emily Cotton
