Quality, Value & Elegance Defines Tavor Weinstein Builders. Tavor Weinstein Builders Houston, Texas. Greater Houston Edition

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1 Greater Houston Edition themetropolitanbuilder.com Quality, Value & Elegance Defines Tavor Weinstein Builders Tavor Weinstein Builders Houston, Texas

2 Quality, Value & Elegance Defines Tavor Weinstein Builders By Penny Smith Jones Photography by Kathleen O. Ryan

3 F rom a neatly-kept California ranch house on a mixed block near Bellaire, Elan Tavor and Matthew Weinstein operate one of Houston s most successful custom luxury home construction firms. Elan, 36, and Matthew, 29, founded Tavor Weinstein Builders in 2010 with a loan from family. They built their first house on spec, sold it, and immediately began to build a second. We started as a one-house-per-year operation, said Elan. We grew slowly but steadily and now we build three to four spec and custom homes a year with price points ranging from $1.5 million to nearly $ 4 million. Elan and Matthew may appear to have had incredible luck but their back story is more layered and intentional.

4 Elan learned his craft from his father, Sam Tavor, founder and president of Stacey Fine Homes of Texas. After graduation from Texas State University, he worked with the elder Tavor for 10 years building luxury homes throughout the Memorial Villages, Spring Valley Village, Tanglewood, West University, and Bellaire. Matthew went to school for Construction Management in Austin and has years of solid construction and upperend remodeling experience. After college, he served as project manager for a family friend and luxury home builder in the same neighborhoods where Elan was building. From there, Elan and Matthew decided to join forces and start their own company. The partners have a loose division of labor within the company. Elan focuses on back office aspects such as payroll, accounting, and listing. Matthew concentrates on the construction side. However, both are always on the job sites and freely admit that after years of working together, they trust each other s judgment one hundredpercent. Tavor Weinstein builds primarily in Tanglewood and Bellaire. Home sizes range from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet and, depending on the square footage, require at least seven and up to 11 months to complete. Custom homes take longer and we work as a team with our clients to build their home as efficiently as possible without skimping on quality, said Elan. Our mission is to build My dad was my mentor, said Elan. He helped to develop my home-building skills as well as the skills needed to build a solid business partnership. We both essentially grew up in home construction, added Matthew. I ve been interested in construction since high school and of course Elan watched his dad build his business just as he and I are doing now with Tavor Weinstein. Elan and I treat each other with respect and want each other to succeed along with our business. We love working together. our clients their dream home from top to bottom. We think a lot about the details, such as future pools and always leave plenty of room for a bobcat to get into the backyards when and if the time comes, said Matthew. We install reinforced elevator shaft closets that are equipped with dedicated telephone circuits and are ready for elevator drop-in. We consciously make first-floor doorways and bathrooms more accessible for someone who may be looking for ADA-type features.

5 Our mission is to build our clients their dream home from top to bottom. The company is also a good neighbor. Elan and Matthew insist on a clean job site and partner with the neighborhood to keep the street uncluttered and clean as well. It s not unusual for the neighbors around one of our projects to keep an eye out for us, said Elan. One neighbor called recently because someone was using our dumpster and they were concerned that it wasn t authorized. It was authorized but we really appreciated the call. That sort of thing builds a nice relationship. Tavor Weinstein keeps overhead low with only two employees - Elan and Matthew. Both confirm that they relentlessly keep overhead down but never cut corners on the work. If you cut corners, it will always come back on you and will cost you your reputation, said Matthew. We spend more at the front end to avoid revisiting to fix something that wasn t right to begin with. When we do make a mistake, we don t hide it. We face it, fix it, and move on. Elan is also a Realtor with John Daugherty, Realtors, and lists the company s homes himself. Having a foot in the Realtor community gives the partners a wider perspective on the home-purchase and sale process and connects them with Realtors on a mutually beneficial level. We operate mainly through customer and Realtor referrals, Elan said. In very high-end housing, you re not going

6 to get customers through the internet. Our first custom homes were sold to people who came to see the third house we d built. They met us and we proceeded to build custom homes for them. There s such a personal element to this business, continued Elan. Our clients are buying a personal home for themselves and their family, and we re a business. So, we make sure that every side in the process has the same goals so that each gets what they need from the transaction. We are still building our business and we re basing that growth on building relationships. Our intent is to have a strong relationship-based business that is an asset to the communities where we build homes. In the five years that Tavor Weinstein has operated, the partners have seen many changes for the better in Houston s high-end residential construction. We ve seen a shift from the overly Mediterranean-style architecture of the last 20 years back to a more timeless style of architecture pure, period designs brought forward that don t date themselves as readily, said Elan. There s more care in the design process than when we started and many more reasonably-priced choices in high-end finishes and technology systems. Also, the buyers have become far more sophisticated and knowledgeable. When asked where they d like to see the company in five years, Elan and Matthew both point to continued strong, steady growth without any compromise of their core values. One of our hallmarks is the ability to produce a high-level of quality and intricate detail at great value for our customers. We want to maintain that while constantly challenging ourselves to improve, added Elan. It s intriguing to consider what each man would be doing if he weren t building luxury homes. I d be working for Apple and as a hobby, boating, said Matthew. I love technology and nothing makes me happier than being on the lake. Elan s answer is completely unexpected. I d be a perfumer. I have a passion for fine fragrances. My wife is very skeptical of this but my dream is to create a custom fragrance for each home we build and present it to the buyers with the address on the label. You may contact Tavor Weinstein Builders at , or etavor@tavorweinsteinbuilders.com