Twenty-three years of houses. Then both sons moved to Austin.

The builder behind Guello Construction spent twenty-three years as a general contractor and custom home builder in Chicagoland and the Quad Cities. He is in Austin for the simplest reason there is: both of his sons live here.

He built custom homes from the footing up and remodeled kitchens, baths, basements, and additions in houses that were already standing, first in the Chicago suburbs and then along the Mississippi on the Illinois-Iowa line. The climate there audits your work. A hundred-degree July and a ten-below January in the same year find every shortcut in the framing and every lazy piece of flashing. You learn to do it right the first time or you learn to come back and fix it on your own dime.

That business ran on referrals, the way a contractor in a mid-size town has to. The crew showed up when it said it would, kept the site clean, and finished. Neighbors told neighbors. No ad budget survives bad work in a place that size, and twenty-three years of it is the track record this company brings to Texas.

Then both of his sons took tech jobs in Austin, one after the other, and the decision made itself. He is moving here to be close to them, and he is starting the way he started the first time: a short client list, his own hands on the work, and a reputation to earn one house at a time. Your project is not one of forty. For a while it may be the only one on the board, and you will feel the difference in how fast your calls get returned.