Custom Homes, Remodels & ADUs in the Columbia River Gorge
Every project we take on — a new custom home, a remodel, an ADU — gets the same thing: a designer and a builder working as one team, under one roof, from the first sketch to the final walkthrough. That's what design-build means at Perch Customs, and it's why clients across the Columbia River Gorge, from White Salmon and Bingen to Trout Lake, come to us instead of hiring an architect and a contractor separately and hoping the two stay in sync.
What that looks like depends on what you're building. A new custom home starts from raw land or a teardown and gives us the most room to design around how you actually want to live. A remodel works within a home that's already yours, solving what isn't working without losing what is. An ADU adds a second living space to land you already own — for family, for rental income, or both.
The process below is organized around those three, because the right first conversation is different for each one.
Custom Home Building
A home designed around your lifestyle and made to fit your land.
Building a custom home means designing a home around your needs, your lifestyle, and your family instead of picking a pre-designed layout.
It is not taking a stock floor plan and placing it on your land, expecting you to adapt your lifestyle to the home.
A custom home in the Columbia River Gorge starts with the land, not the floor plan. Before we draw anything, we walk the site with you — where the morning light lands, which way the wind moves through a slope, what the view actually is once you're standing at the height the living room will sit. A site-responsive design isn't a style choice; it's the difference between a house that could sit anywhere and a home that belongs exactly where it is.
Next, we learn how you want to live in your new home. How do you spend a Saturday in the Gorge? What are your rituals and daily rhythms? What types of spaces do you want to support your life?
How We Design Around You
Orienting the home to the site itself — morning light, wind, slope, the view from where you'll actually stand
Designing a floor plan that makes the most of your lot and the views you bought the land for
Creating living spaces that suit the way your family actually spends time, both in gathering together and recharging as individuals
Including dedicated spaces — a home office, a mudroom for gear, a shop — built around how you really use a home
Designing around what you actually do inside and outside of your home: a gear room and rinse station for windsurfing or kiteboarding gear, a studio with the right light for painting or pottery, a kitchen built for someone who actually cooks
Choosing materials, finishes, and a style that are yours, not a trend you'll want to undo in five years
Designing a home that can shift as your life does — a room that becomes an office, then a nursery, then a guest space, without a remodel every time
Let’s Chat About Your Home
We’d love to learn more about your project.
Schedule a call with the owners, Adam and Susan, to see if working with us is a good fit.
Why Build With Perch Customs?
You could hire an architect and a general contractor separately, and hope the two stay in sync for the length of the project.
Or you could work with one team that designs and builds under the same roof — the same people accountable for the vision on day one and the last nail on the final day.
That's the real difference between Perch Customs and most of the other options in the Gorge. It's also why every project we take on, whatever the size, comes with the same five commitments:
Decisions scheduled ahead of time, not rushed
A Schedule you can see from day 1, updated regularly
Work With The Builder, Designer, and Owner directly.
Regular Communication with one team from design through construction.
A Real Budget before you sign anything
An Online Client Portal with 24/7 access to updates and progress photos.
Our Simple Process
It starts with discovery and ends with your keys in hand. Here's the path a Perch project follows, phase by phase:
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We start with questions about your project, your site, your timeline, and how you're funding the build, plus the daily rituals and lifestyle the home needs to support. Adam leads this conversation personally.
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We work out how the home sits on the land and how it feels to be inside it, checking every decision against your budget and your site's realities together. This phase ends when you sign off on a direction.
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Your concept becomes construction-ready drawings, backed by engineering, site analysis, and a real, line-item budget built from actual subcontractor bids and your personal selections.
With a real cost for your home in hand, you decide whether to move forward. A deposit follows once the cooling-off period ends.
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We handle permitting while you lock in the selections identified during preconstruction, so nothing about materials or finishes waits until the crew is on site.
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With the groundwork already done, construction moves with intention, not improvisation. You'll see updates and photos in your client portal on a set rhythm, and any change is written down and confirmed before work proceeds.
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We’ll go over every detail and ensure that it matches what was designed, then the keys are yours.
Adam, our lead builder, brings formal architecture training into every one of these conversations — which is the part most first-time builders don't know to ask for. It means the person sketching your home with you is the same person who understands how it actually gets built, and the same person who stays on site through construction. Nothing gets lost in the handoff, because there isn't one.
Most of our custom home clients are building the home they've been postponing — people who spend their weekends in the Gorge already and are ready to stop driving back. If that's you, the honest first step isn't picking finishes. It's understanding our process and seeing what we guarantee in writing before you commit to anything.
What People Are Saying
“Adam Mills Elliott stands out as one of the best contractors I’ve worked with. I’ve been building in the Columbia River Gorge for more than 22 years and have had the opportunity to work with a lot of different contractors and tradespeople over that time. His communication is exceptional. He’s easy to work with, and he takes tremendous pride in his craftsmanship.”
— Trevor Jostad, Local Builder
“Adam is conscientious, upbeat, reliable, and hard-working. His attention to detail on our project was appreciated, and not something just anyone could do. He is trustworthy, and it was easy and relaxed having him work in our home. We would hire him again.”
— Amy Ford, Former Client and Professional Construction Manager
Remodels & Custom Renovations
A remodel is a different kind of design problem than a new build — you're not starting from raw land, you're working within walls, framing, and a life that's already happening inside them. The house already has a shape; the job is figuring out what's actually not working.
What Often Needs to Change
A kitchen that fights the way you cook
A primary suite with no real connection to the outdoors
A layout built for a family that's changed
The goal is solving these without losing what already works.
We approach custom home remodels in White Salmon and across the Gorge the same design-build way we approach new construction: one team, real bids before you commit, decisions scheduled ahead of time instead of sprung on you once walls are already open. That last part matters more in a remodel than almost anywhere else — once demolition starts, a decision you haven't made yet becomes a delay, and a decision made in a rush becomes something you live with for years.
Remodels also surface site-responsive thinking in a different way: sometimes the best move is adding the window that was never there, not adding square footage at all. If you're not sure yet whether your project is a remodel, an addition, or something closer to a rebuild, that's a design conversation worth having before either of us assumes an answer.
Finish bathroom remodel with custom tile work completed with partners at Wonser Construction.
Not Sure What To Ask A Builder?
Discover the 5 Questions You Need To Ask
Download our Free Guide to learn the questions (and answers) that will help you determine if a custom home build team is right for you.
ADUs - Accessory Dwelling Units
An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a full home or apartment on land you already own.
It's custom construction at a smaller scale, which sounds simpler and sometimes is — but an ADU still needs its own design thinking: where it sits on the lot or integrated into the home, how much privacy it gives both households, whether it reads as an addition or a separate home.
Why Homeowners Add An ADU
Housing for aging parents, nearby but independent
Space for a grown kid who isn't quite ready to leave
Long-term or short-term rental income
Often more than one of these at once
We build ADUs across the Columbia River Gorge with the same process behind every other project here — a real budget before you commit, one team handling design and construction, no decision sprung on you once the crew is on site. Permitting and setback requirements vary by county, so an ADU conversation with us starts with your specific lot, not a generic floor plan.
If an ADU is on your radar but you're not sure it's the right move yet — versus a remodel, versus waiting — that's worth talking through before either of us assumes it's the answer.
Contact us
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