Client communication and strategic staffing are integral foundations for custom home builder, Tourmaline Builders
Building custom homes throughout the coastal neighborhoods of San Diego, Tourmaline Builders (Tourmaline) has been expanding rapidly over the past 15 years. Currently located in Solana Beach, the company began in Pacific Beach and builds all the way from Coronado up to Oceanside. Tourmaline’s President, Ben Ryan, a former Navy SEAL who got his start in construction building in a war zone in Baghdad, elaborates on Tourmaline’s history and development: “We started out doing smaller remodels and the size and complexity of our projects has grown substantially over time. We now build around ten to 12 luxury custom homes a year.”
Tourmaline takes pride in both the exceptional quality of its builds, and its high caliber of staff. “Our business is unique in the way we staff a project,” Ben explains.
“We have five project managers and four project coordinators, and we put two people on every project, each very competent and each with a vastly different skill set. We’ll have a project manager in the field, managing subcontractors and quality control with a hands-on approach to the project. Alongside them is a project coordinator who’s managing the budget, procurement, keeping the client informed, and coordinating with the interior designer and architect. It’s very difficult to find a single project manager with the same skill set, the way most companies would traditionally run a custom home build, and that gives us a unique advantage.”
Client communication
Most of Tourmaline’s builds are situated near the ocean and they are all very different, with each home showcasing its own distinctive details. Although the homes are all unique in design, Ben says their beachside location can present challenges with respect to the weather, waterproofing and the effects of salt air on materials, which Tourmaline has become adept at resolving over time.
In terms of industry trends, he reveals: “We’re seeing more wellbeing and lifestyle-driven design features built into homes, such as fitness rooms, yoga spaces, saunas and cold plunges. There’s also been an interest in golf simulators, and a lot of wine rooms.
“From an aesthetic perspective, although it’s varied, I would say we’re seeing a move away from the ultra-minimal white box, and towards richer textures, more organic palettes of materials and additional warmth and character.”
Alongside its building expertise, regular communication with clients is key for Tourmaline in ensuring a positive client experience. “During the course of building a client’s home, we provide a weekly update for the client, typically meeting with them on site,” Ben highlights. “Some clients want to meet more or less frequently, depending on the phase of the project. We are also very committed to our online portal, Buildertrend, which stores all our schedules, most of our key decisions and we upload daily photographs of the project. The client can access the platform at any time, all the information about their project is readily available and they don’t have to make any last-minute, rushed decisions.
“Additionally, we put a huge amount of effort into our estimating and strive to be as accurate as possible. Our estimates reflect what it truly takes to build a home. We never underestimate costs or present unrealistic schedules to win a job – we believe in 100 percent transparency and all our costs are completely open to the client. We take a lot of pride in our culture of being highly organized and running our company like a professional business. At Tourmaline, we put the client ahead of profit because we recognize that building a high-quality product and creating a superior client experience is crucial for long-term success.”
The company has seen significant increases in costs over the past five years, primarily due to the pandemic which Ben describes as an ‘incredibly challenging’ period. However, he remains positive for the year ahead, noting that cost increases have leveled off and now appear to be more in line with inflation.
Finetuning quality
“I believe 2026 will be a strong year for Tourmaline,” Ben finalizes. “We’ve been growing very slowly and organically, and it looks set to continue that trajectory. Custom home building is certainly not slowing down – in our experience, the phone is still ringing, and people still want to build. Some of the projects we have in the pipeline are spectacular builds and we’re very excited about them.
“Looking further ahead, we want to continue growing incrementally. It’s important that we’re able to maintain the quality of our buildings, so I think in five years’ time we’ll be slightly larger than now, but not excessively. We want to focus on finetuning the quality of our processes in an ever-changing world, ultimately making our organization stronger and the quality of our builds the best they can be.”