Washington DC · Maryland · Virginia
Finished, and ready to live in — architect-grade design from two careers each published in Architectural Digest, held to the standard they'd demand on any commission.
The Idea
Commission an architect and wait years through the budget fights — or buy something finished and settle for less design. A Distinct Build home collapses that choice: architect-grade design, already built.
Because the architect and the builder develop these homes for themselves, the vision that makes a house worth its premium is the one that actually gets built — finished, and ready to live in. What you buy isn't another luxury home — it's the one they'd have built for themselves. Each one is distinct. That's the whole idea.
What You Get
The detail that makes a house worth its premium is the detail that survives all the way to the front door — nothing quietly cut along the way.
The design you'd otherwise commission and wait years for, finished and available. The rarest thing on the market: a home like this, ready to live in.
Every home carries an architect's name and a builder's record — a story no commodity home can buy, and one that stays with the house.
Architecture: Olson Kundig · Built by Steve Howard
Recognition
Architectural Digest publishes only a handful of homes a year. For an architect and a builder to have each earned that page — on separate projects, years apart — and then design and build as one is rarer still.
Architectural Digest — Niederhurst Residence, 2016. Also featured in Interior Design, and honored with the AIA Distinguished Building Award and multiple IIDA Red Awards across 30+ years of residential design.
Architectural Digest — Jigsaw Residence, September 2010, for David Jameson, FAIA — one of 25+ publications worldwide across 35+ years of building. A national AIA Honor Award and multiple International Architecture Awards, for Olson Kundig, Allan Greenberg, MODE4, and MKCA.
Selected Work & Collaborations
The first Distinct Build development and a completed DC collaboration — over a body of work Todd has designed and Steve has built for the country's leading architects.
Architecture: Olson Kundig · Built by Steve Howard
Custom-Home Standards
A Distinct Build home is developed and finished before you arrive — and built to the standard a high-end custom builder would hold, in every decision from the foundation to the finish.
Foundation drainage, drained-and-dried walls, and standing-seam, mountain-weather detailing.
Stego vapor control, sub-slab and spray-foam insulation, and Pella Impervia windows.
Real wood floors, real tile, curbless showers, and solid hardware — not plastic LVP.
In-house millwork to our own profiles, with kitchens and baths treated as architecture.
No upgrade package. No builder-grade shortcuts. Just a better standard from the start.
View the Standards
Architecture: Olson Kundig · Built by Steve Howard
The Partners
Todd Webb designs. Steve Howard builds. They've already built together — Todd's designs, Steve's hand — on commissioned homes for some of the most demanding architects and clients in the country. This isn't three people meeting at a table; it's a team formalizing what it already does.
Two collaborations are underway now, and the first home developed by Distinct Build is in construction.
What We Offer
Most of what we make, we develop ourselves — architect-designed homes, built to our own standard and offered complete. Architect-grade, finished, ready now.
We also take a small number of private commissions — the same team, the same standard, applied to your own site. Kept selective, so the work stays distinct.
Inquire
We work with a small number of homes at a time. Tell us what you have in mind.
Get in Touch