Can you build a custom home without a client in mind?
A conversation with Nick Schiffer and James Robb
Buyers don’t typically associate speculative construction with exceptional design and craftsmanship, but Nick Schiffer, principal of NS Builders, and James Robb, co-founder of the surfaces company MADERA, want to change that. You may have seen their custom home, 45 White Oak, in your feed. Architect Vincent Appel’s monumental design, with its gorgeous shingled exterior and white oak-clad interiors, is hard to miss. But did you know they built it without a specific buyer in mind?
Schiffer and Robb recently joined hosts Drew Lang and Ravi Arps for a conversation about the bespoke home and their ongoing collaboration. Here are four key takeaways.
On home-building with Bugatti-level precision:
Schiffer and Robb don’t believe in cutting corners to save time or money. Instead, they pursue an uncompromised approach to building — using the best materials and the best people — or, as Schiffer dubs it, the Bugatti approach.
“Every decision has to be the right decision. And it’s not: ‘Hey, do it faster, do it less expensively. Don’t worry, it’s just a development.’ No — this is art.” —Nick Schiffer
For Robb, whose company, MADERA, single-sourced all of the home’s wood, this means honoring the surface material and ensuring nothing goes to waste.
“Let’s actually go select the logs, and let’s embrace everything in that log. If there’s an offcut, a stump in the log yard, let’s turn that into the dining table to put down in the kitchen — I always use the butchery example, from snout to tail, the whole idea of using the whole animal.” —James Robb
On the value of pre-construction:
Thoughtful pre-construction often doesn’t make sense to clients who want to focus their spend on the materials going into the finished product, but Robb and Schiffer agree the pre-construction phase is essential for a successful build.
“The point of pre-construction is to de-risk construction.” —Schiffer
Pre-construction can save time and improve quality by leveraging off-site construction, which MADERA did with all of the white oak elements in the 45 White Oak.
“All the white oak in this home was manufactured off-site, shipped here, and prefinished. So it went in and was done — we didn’t install, mill, and fit it ourselves. Someone had done that months before the house was ready, because we worked through the design and understood how it went together before construction.” —Robb
On drawing inspiration from the hospitality industry:
Schiffer cites the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara as a major, if unexpected, influence on the way he thinks about home building. He wants to make the process of buying a custom home as enjoyable as staying at a great hotel.
“[A home] is one of the most expensive things people will ever buy in their life. Why is it such a shitty process — why can’t it be great?” —Schiffer
On forming a tribe and growing with your collaborators:
Schiffer began his career wanting to “build cool shit with cool people,” a mindset that led him to collaborators like Robb and Vincent Appel, 45 White Oak’s architect. He plans to continue working together far into the future.
“I want to call James and throw an idea at him and say, ‘I want to use this wood, and I want to do it throughout the whole house,’ and I want him to be be like, ‘That sounds cool.’ Those are the partnerships I want.”—Schiffer
Robb agrees. As he puts it:
“We are very impressed by some of the forefathers in our industry — be it Dinesen out of Denmark or Dowbuilt, people who have really formed these tight relationships and grown and built together. We need to create our own tribe, create our own partnerships.” —Robb
