Blending luxury design with engineering, Justin Doyle Homes brings strength, style and performance to Midwest homes
Born and raised in the construction industry, Justin Doyle grew up working for his father’s company in Ohio. With a vast amount of experience under his belt, alongside a degree in mechanical engineering, he launched his own company, Justin Doyle Homes (JDH) in 2009. It has since become renowned for its high-end custom home builds, predominantly through Homearama home shows and various other marketing events in Cincinnati. Modern Home Builders sits down with Justin, alongside company COO, Josh Agricola, and Director of Sales, Matt Terrell, to discover more about the Midwest construction company and its goals for the coming year: “From a young age, I was constructing affordable homes across multiple price points in Lima, Ohio, and I was constantly updating my dad’s older floor plans, redesigning houses to what was trending,” Justin explains. “I went on to gain a degree in engineering, but I’ve been an architect designer since I was 14 years old. Upon forming JDH, we created three different series – Signature, Luxury, and Luxury Condo. Our Signature series creates a stock floorplan type environment where the customer can see the plans we’ve already designed and use this as a starting point for their ideas. We can tweak it to meet their requirements. Our Luxury series is for those who need to design something from scratch. We understand our customers budgets, their vision, and their aesthetics, then we blend all that together based upon our extensive experience.”
Expansive portfolio
The founder’s degree means he’s been heavily involved in the engineering of JDH’s homes, integrating the knowledge and skill into designing a structurally sound product. “One of our foundation contractors once commented that a cement truck could be driven over our floors, because that’s how strong and secure the framing systems are,” Justin recalls. “Our goal was to create a ‘squeak-free’ home! There’s a maximum amount of clear span that we can put in our floor systems, as most of our homes have basements here in the Midwest, and many of our high-end customers want big open spaces without beams everywhere. Designing that product with different types of subfloor and floor joists allows us to incorporate a good, solid framing system into their home.”
Justin adds that one of the most important parts of the process happens before design even begins – helping clients identify the right homesite. “The land matters just as much as the house,” he says. “When the lot is right, we can design and engineer the home to take full advantage of the setting. We will soon be offering new homesites in Oakridge Estates in Loveland, for example.”
Creating over 400 custom homes in Cincinnati in the past 25 years, JDH has an expansive portfolio and is prolific for building basketball courts in homes throughout the city – completing over 30 different properties that featured courts in a basement or a side garage. “One of my favorite projects was for a customer who bought 130 acres with an 80-acre quarry, and he wanted to build a log cabin on the site,” highlights Justin. “We built this amazing hilltop property using concrete logs and erected a slide for his grandchildren that went from the top of the hill, all the way down to the lake. It was a phenomenal project to be involved in, and the first log cabin style home we’d built, so it was also a valuable learning curve. In addition, we’ve been segueing the company into more modern designs, as many of the modern styles are beginning to show up in Cincinnati now. Over the past year, we’ve been working on a four-story home in a community called The Foundry in Oakley, which is a highly sought-after urban product. Cincinnati’s a fast-growing city and it’s fantastic to have this product in our portfolio.”
Stronger relationships
“We’ve worked on some great projects over the last 24 months,” adds Josh, who has been with the company for five years. “We completed a beautiful custom home for a family in Northern Kentucky, on an incredible piece of land situated in the rolling hills of Kentucky. Aside from that, we’ve created some multifamily developments, including a six-building project we’re currently doing, right in the heart of a historic district in Lebanon.” With a range of exciting projects to its name, the company is not only dedicated to high-quality builds but is equally committed to its core values: integrity, making a difference, passion, attentive, customer-centric and team player. “Our core values spell out the word IMPACT, and these qualities are used as a guideline when we hire employees,” notes Matt, who has been heading up the sales team since 2013. “We’re looking to hire people with integrity who are willing and able to learn and keen to get involved with jobs outside of their primary role, which is important in a small company. We have great team of around 16 employees, and everybody is stretching for a common goal, which is to build beautiful homes and provide amazing customer experiences throughout the process. If we’re healthy as a team, we think that results in a healthy product, a happy homeowner and an enjoyable environment for the team.”
Matt also reveals JDH is prioritizing this area of the business in 2026: “Every year we have company goals, both for the team and individuals,” he says. “Hitting sales is essentially how we continue as a company and we need a good product to present to homeowners, so we’ve really curated our designs to our Signature series, and I think that series is going to be key in capturing clients quickly in 2026. Secondly, we’ll be looking at pricing – we need to keep it relative to where the market’s at, while hitting our budget. These areas of focus have carried over from 2025, and they will continue into 2027. We have some wonderful homeowners to build for and if we can keep improving the process, it’s a home run for everybody. This is integral, especially being a small company, as we don’t have a $50 million marketing budget. It all comes down to happy homeowners and their testimonials.”
Concluding with the company’s plans for the next three to five years, Justin adds: “We’re a general contractor and we do have a strategic pattern – we design everything in-house, but we sub out to the mechanical contractors. Therefore, our goal is to continue developing our systems to enable effective communication, better understand the structure of our trade base, and build stronger relationships with contractors so we can grow together.”