About The Builder
Travis and Donna Mitchell
"Born to Build" has become a popular catch phrase in the building industry but a true statement for Travis Mitchell.
Travis Mitchell is a third generation home builder that may have had his path set in DNA from the early 1950's. His grand father, Lee Ridout, was a very successful home builder in the Garland, Texas area in the 1950's and 1960's. With a record of over 150 traditional style custom homes, his name and the quality of his work can be seen in the lasting beauty of these homes today.
A Texas native, at the young age of five, Travis Mitchell moved with his mother and father to the Canyon Lake area where they settled and lived in a home built by his father, Ron Mitchell. Ron Mitchell was the first "Mitchell Custom Homes" that built in and around the Canyon Lake area. His specialty was the "home on stilts" as Travis described it at a young age. These lake houses were designed to be built on steep hillsides with sprawling decks and many windows to take advantage of the spectacular view of the relatively new Canyon Lake. Ron took his young son Travis with him to jobsites where he picked up blocks of wood for an allowance and learned what it meant to work hard. This work ethic was instilled in Travis by his father at an early age and continued on though various years of summer work at his dad's jobsites.
After completion of high school, Travis moved with his family to Las Vegas in 1989, where he got his first job at the age of 18 working on the high rise Rio Hotel and Casino. From ground breaking to opening day of the twenty two floor first tower and casino, Travis was a union carpenter's apprentice learning all aspects of commercial construction. Travis attended the University of Nevada Las Vegas but also stayed in the carpenters union and worked on the Santa Fe Hotel and Casino and two new North Las Vegas schools. After three years of commercial construction and part time school, Travis realized building was his niche and continued on with a family tradition.
In October of 1993, Travis decided to return to his home in Texas. Travis' uncle, Martin Mitchell, was the head of the installed sales program at Builders Square in San Antonio. With his help Travis became an installer for not only Builders Square but Home Depot as well. With over 400 installs per year for the next three years Travis gained experience in scheduling his own jobs and more customer interaction and relations than he could ever imagine.
In 1995 Travis began to pursue his passion of working on new homes and started interviewing local home builders. In January of 1996 Travis was hired as an assistant construction manager with a local San Antonio home builder. After six short months Travis moved up to lead construction manager of the fastest growing production builder in the nation at the time.
With much experience in fast pace multiple closings of production homes Travis wanted to gain experience in a more custom environment. 1998 is when Travis made the move to another locally owned San Antonio home builder. This time things were done on a bit slower pace with fewer homes built per year that were more semi-custom. This company's policy and attitude was much more geared to quality building and customer satisfaction.
With many thoughts of going on his own in January of 2002 Travis felt like he had the experience, knowledge and the drive to start his own company. The only missing ingredient in the master plan was financial backing. Travis had a great business plan for a community to build in, ideas for a model home, and the security of a building in a location that was hot on the market with intense advertisement, marketing, and building longevity.
Travis found his financial backer and began Millennium Homes, as an equal partnership, building the first model home right behind the land sales office in Mystic Shores. Over the next five and a half years Travis had participated in over ten builders fairs as Millennium Homes built over 35 houses just in Mystic Shores alone. Millennium Homes built many other homes in and around the Canyon Lake, Bulverde, and Spring Branch area.
Based out of Mystic Shores, Travis had grown Millennium Homes to require a sales and construction staff to help him operate the company and eventually grew the need for a much larger second model home that was completed in December of 2004. In January of 2005, Travis became Vice President of Millennium Custom Homes, LLC as his partner assumed the role of President and continued his duties as an office administrator.
Even though Millennium Homes, a company Travis had started with from ground zero, had become very successful in its own right and gained a reputation as being a quality builder, Travis began to feel like the newly re-structured company had taken a direction away from what he originally set out to do. Over the history of Millennium Homes, Travis had learned a great deal about business and how to run it. Travis developed systems of internal management and quality control to better the company. After five and a half years Travis realized that with his financial backer, and once equal partner, now having majority ownership of the company, that he had once again hit the glass ceiling with what he could accomplish in the home building business.
In early June of 2007 Travis Mitchell stepped down as Vice President of Millennium Custom Homes, LLC, took a step back, regrouped his thoughts and desires for building, and began his own new company as a sole proprietorship. Mitchell Custom Homes was up and running in less than a month.
Travis Mitchell has gone back to his roots of when he first started and is now stronger than ever with his revitalized building philosophy. Aside from being more price competitive, Travis has realized that a big part of a person's decision in selecting a builder comes from having a very strong and personal builder/client relationship during the entire planning and building process.
Travis Mitchell limits himself to only taking on four to five houses at a time, twice a year, so that he can personally manage the building process of each individual custom home. Travis has surrounded himself with only the strongest contractor and vendor base in the Texas Hill Country area. Many of his people have been with him for over ten years and have gained mutual respect for each other and responsibility for the work they do.
With the help of his residential plan designer, Peggy Sampson, of P.S. Designs Inc, Travis Mitchell builds custom homes ranging in size from 2400 to over 5000 square feet. With a nine year working relationship with Peggy Sampson, Travis and Peggy have become one of the most recognizable builder/designer teams in Mystic Shores. Together, they design and build homes with Old World Tuscany flair, to waterfront Mediterranean Villas to Texas Hill Country style homes.
Travis Mitchell has a great variety of completed homes for viewing in Mystic Shores, Vintage Oaks, Las Brisas and many other communities around the New Braunfels, Canyon Lake area. Since all of the Mitchell's homes are truly custom built, they vary in style of architecture, size, features, and price range.
Travis Mitchell consistently has two to four homes at different stages of construction to show his potential clients. This view of a pre-finished home sets Mitchell apart from his competitors by demonstrating energy saving features and building techniques, the use of top of the line building materials and pride in his work shown by a neat and tidy job site and full attention to every detail. Travis fully believes that what's behind the walls such as plumbing, heating and air systems, and insulation are just as important as the cabinets, counters and flooring. "Your home has to not only look and feel comfortable inside but work well and last for years to come. With many of my customers on the brink of retirement, providing a new home to my buyers with low energy bills and little maintenance is top priority." says Travis.
Mitchell Custom Homes has completed nearly 30 new homes in New Braunfels, Canyon Lake and the Texas Hill Country area since June of 2007. As a custom home builder many of Travis Mitchell's custom homes can be found in prestigious neighborhoods such as Mystic Shores and Mystic Oaks. A sophisticated yet historically authentic new model home will be completed in the heart of New Braunfels, TX in early Spring 2012.
Donna Mitchell heads up not on the design of the new Mitchell Custom Homes model in New Braunfels but the total make over, interior finish, and revitalization of the quaint Spanish Villa that began in 1937. Travis and Donna have selected a unique historical home resting on a double lot near downtown New Braunfels to be the next showplace for Mitchell Custom Homes. Potential clients will be able to visit and marvel at the creative work of both Donna and Travis. The expansion of this home will include adding 2400 additional square feet, a large four car garage with guest cabana and total re-vamp of the existing home including all mechanical, electrical, plumbing and finish out. While retaining the existing Spanish Villa architecture of this home, the double in size renovation to the property will mesh with modern energy efficiency, updated finishing and character. To see this exciting transformation and finished product in spring of 2012 please visit the Mitchell Custom Homes website for updated pictures and notice of grand opening.
"I could never pull this off without the help of my wife Donna who is also my business partner" says Travis. "Most of my clients don't realize that behind the scenes my wife runs our office with weekly payroll, diligent upkeep of contractors inurance, key advertisement coordination, and much more. Most of all Donna is the glue that binds our goals and hard work into the rock solid company we have today. I continue to rely on her each year to make the right choices in business, treating people fairly and running a company with honesty and integrity in an industry that is sometimes associated with a degree of deception." Donna maintains her full time job as a mom and high school math teacher at Canyon High School.
Mitchell Custom Homes may not be the builder for every client but for those looking for someone to guide them along though the entire process from developing house plans, to staying in a budget, to personally overseeing the entire construction process, to move in, Travis Mitchell of Mitchell Custom Homes is the right choice.