Spartan Homes specializes in elevating lifestyles through exceptional home remodeling and custom home construction
With 45 years of combined experience in the home building industry, Spartan Homes Inc. (Spartan Homes) strives to ensure that all customers move into the home they have always wanted. The company specializes in two core areas: custom home construction and home remodeling. When it comes to custom homes, Spartan Homes is renowned for crafting luxurious residences that embody elegance and bespoke design. In the realm of home remodeling, the homebuilder transforms spaces with innovative solutions that fuse style, functionality, and personalized details. Eric Henry, President, joins us for an informative discussion on Spartan Homes’ operations, covering a notable project.
“As a design build company, we primarily focus on creating custom homes in the Lake Anna area of Virginia. Over our 20 years in business, we have significantly improved and now proudly excel in building homes to the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) silver level. Moreover, we concentrate on employing the best building practices and superior materials to make sure that we construct homes that are not only sturdier but also more energy efficient. Our goal is to prevent water ingress and maintain conditioned air within the homes,’ he opens.
While Spartan Homes is a relatively young company at 20 years old, Eric’s expertise in the homebuilding industry predates the establishment of his business. “My father and grandfather owned a masonry business, and I often joined and assisted them on the job sites. Despite growing up in construction, I initially resisted the idea of pursuing a career in the field. However, life led me back to it. After two years of college, I spent six years in the military. Upon leaving the service, I got a job with an insurance restoration company that handled thousands of claims a year, enabling me to gain significant experience in a short amount of time. Juggling side jobs, I eventually embraced the idea of working for myself and decided to start my own business, which evolved into Spartan Homes 20 years ago. Since then, we have been dedicated to crafting custom homes,” he enlightens.
Personal touch
Over the course of the last two decades, Spartan Homes has evolved as a business and consequently honed its competitive edge. “I believe we stand out by being smaller, family-oriented, and truly dedicated to offering fully custom homes. While many builders claim to be custom, this often translates to clients having limited choices, such as selecting a couple of doors and a paint color. In contrast, we offer as much customization as our clients want, accommodating any requests from the type of concrete to the type of shingle. As a smaller company actively operated by three family members, we are highly flexible and maintain constant communication every single day, enabling us to be involved in each project we take on. Additionally, we are different from larger corporations where reaching the owner may involve navigating through multiple layers of staff. Here, 60 percent of the time, calls are answered by my daughter, who serves as Office Manager, and the remaining 40 percent of the time, I personally handle incoming calls. This streamlined process ensures that clients and homeowners can easily reach us without unnecessary steps or intermediaries,” Eric explains.
Energy experts 
To highlight Spartan Homes custom building excellence, Eric shares details of a recent project: the Steeplechase. “We purchased the plan for the Steeplechase from architect Donald Gardner. The Steeplechase was a project for a customer who owned a beautiful lot where they had just built a top-of-the-line two-story boat dock. However, the client’s existing home required significant remodeling work, and even though we could have made additions and renovations, it would not have been enough to fully meet their family’s needs. Therefore, they decided to demolish the house and selected us to build the Steeplechase, a residence spanning just over 7000 square feet. We modified the design to incorporate windows at the rear as a way to take advantage of the expansive lakefront views.
“Every house we build, including the Steeplechase, is a custom project, whether it involves minor adjustments or significant modifications. We either create the plans from scratch or purchase the rights to a plan and then redraw it, as we did for the Steeplechase, to accommodate any of the homeowner’s preferences. During the plan revision process, our fantastic draftsman excels at suggesting improvements and offering various options for consideration before the finalization of the plans,” he continues.
Across every house it builds, Spartan Homes showcases its proficiency in building homes to the silver level of the NGBS. “Going beyond traditional energy standards, the NGBS encompasses inspections across various aspects of homebuilding. Essentially, we need to complete a significant amount of paperwork, after which third-party inspectors are brought in to verify both the home and the documentation. Once the inspectors confirm that everything meets the required standards, they issue a certification demonstrating our compliance. The inspection process ends with thorough blower door tests to confirm that the house is highly energy efficient. Subsequently, the documentation is forwarded to Washington, DC for review, including numerous images, forms, and all certifications related to insulation, HVAC systems, and equipment model numbers. From the house’s positioning on the lot to considerations like water conservation and indoor air quality, all aspects are covered in the certification process. This approach exemplifies our commitment to prioritizing energy efficiency, health, and structural durability when building a new home,” Eric concludes.
Spartan Homes’ dedication to crafting energy-efficient custom homes is poised to solidify its reputation as a premier homebuilder in the Lake Anna region.