With a legacy spanning over 30 years, Via Builders leads the market with its all-encompassing expertise
Situated in Los Altos amongst stunning mountain ranges, rolling hills, and historical communities, Via Builders is a top name in California’s homebuilding sphere. The business’ story began with Ralph Saviano, who, in 1973, worked alongside his father at Saviano Company. After gaining experience across a number of commercial and residential remodeling projects, Ralph took the passion and knowledge that he shared with his father and, some years later, Via Builders was born. Today, the company remains known for three things: unrivalled expertise, extensive custom capabilities, and the close-knit relationships it upholds with its clients, partners, and local communities.
Modern Home Builders sits down with Wes Kartch, Operations Manager at Via Builders, to gain exclusive insight into the secrets driving the company’s remarkable
success, as well as what its next chapter might hold going into 2026. Having initially joined Via Builders as a junior project manager 11 years ago, Wes has been an integral figure within the company and begins our conversation by sharing some background into its journey thus far.
Diverse styles
“The business began in the early 90s. We started doing spec homes in the Los Altos and surrounding areas and, after being asked by many people in the community to work on their homes, we evolved into a traditional general contractor,” Wes describes. “Early on, we were one of the few design-build firms in the area, which was a very desirable thing at that time. Providing one place for a client to come for designs, planning, permitting, and construction has made us one of very few in an area experiencing a lot of financial and social growth. Our founder and CEO is still heavily involved in preconstruction design work, operations, and client satisfaction.”
Today, Via Builders is proud to offer the full package of turnkey design-build solutions, leveraging its extensive expertise through its thorough scope of pre-construction services, from initial project feasibility, cost forecasting, and planning through to conceptual designs, architectural drawings, value engineering, and permitting. Though each of its projects are connected through exceptional quality, craftsmanship, and attention to detail, each home is unique and expertly encapsulates the desires and personalities of its clients. As such, the company is able to incorporate a diverse selection of architectural styles and design elements into its projects, thus providing a truly comprehensive, bespoke experience.
“We take on projects of all designs these days, though we do a lot of modern, traditional and farmhouse homes especially. The Covid-19 shutdowns created a lot of work-from-homers, which has caused our clients to shift their design priorities. We’ve been designing and building homes with offices, gyms, and saunas, for instance – things that typically people would leave their homes for,” Wes explains. “This has really increased the level of intentionality when designing and building, and also made for a more increased level of client interaction and detail during the design and construction process. People are spending more time at home these days and our designs have been geared towards providing everything our clients want all under their roofs.”
Cohesive design
Cohesive designEncompassing over three decades of success, this unwavering emphasis on quality and client centricity has been integral in differentiating Via Builders in this competitive landscape and remains one of its core defining qualities.
“We stand out by finishing well,” Wes elaborates. “It’s all about setting expectations early with our clients and giving them transparency in a very convoluted construction process. Everyone who touches a construction project is a part of the team, so if you create good relationships with clients, suppliers, subcontractors, and your local municipalities, teamwork is increased and everyone benefits – especially the clients. If that is the way people remember you, you will always have work.”
By upholding this ethos, Via Builders has successfully designed, constructed, and delivered a multitude of beautiful dream homes – over 400 throughout its tenure thus far. Wes shares details of one of the company’s most recent projects: “Our most recently completed project in Los Altos Hills was special in that we got to work with a very well-regarded interior designer, who did an incredible job blending both of our clients’ individual wants and needs together into a beautifully cohesive design. The designers and our construction team worked very well together, and the finished project is amazing. The owners were very decisive, the design team listened well, and our team was given the information we needed to execute. The project was very successful all around.”
Better experience
As 2025 comes to an end, Via Builders is proud to have had another highly successful year. Having triumphantly delivered on its motto – ‘Our Success Depends On Your Satisfaction’ – the company is well-positioned for a great year ahead, centered on upholding its stellar reputation and craftsmanship, while taking its expertise to new heights.
“Our priorities for 2026 are to continue to strive to provide a better experience for our customers, and we intend to do this by enhancing our systems to simplify the build process and by widening our pool of quality vendors, suppliers, and subcontractors. We hope to keep our employees as busy as they have been for almost four decades,” Wes reveals, looking forward to the year ahead.
“In five years’ time, we hope to continue our reputation of being the most well-known and talked about builder in the area,” he affirms, concluding our conversation. “We also hope to be adding a few younger folks to the team to bring this new generation’s expertise to the company. As our clientele shifts to a newer generation, we want to make sure our team can evolve and do the same.”