Photography by Andrew Pogue
New Development
Purpose-Built, Site-Specific Luxury
Manufacturing innovations are reshaping design-build possibilities, giving access to even the hardest-to-reach destinations
Buildability is often the reason why a coveted parcel of land may never sell. The view could be uninterrupted, acreage right, and location unrepeatable, but logistics and permitting make it unfeasible, whether dealing with a seismic zone, a protected canopy, steep ground, extreme weather vulnerability, or a hard-to-access location that would require years of planning. Camphomes, a design-build studio with a manufacturing facility in Nicaragua, has spent five years building a system that directly addresses this issue. The company designs, engineers, mills, and preassembles custom, luxury homes at its own factory before shipping them in components that will be finished on site. They focus on manufacturing homes in places that are tough to build on, such as mountains or islands. Its debut American residence, completed in 2025 on a forested lot on Bainbridge Island, Washington, is proof in practice.
Using Quality Craftsmanship to Guide Each Project
Matthew Falkiner, Co-Founder and Architect of Camphomes, spent years building boutique hotels before turning the company toward residential work. “Places where people want to have amazing experiences are oftentimes the most difficult places to build,” he says.
Off-site construction is not new, and at the high end it is no longer rare. What is rare is the scope. Nearly every luxury prefab builder on the market sells a structural shell and stops there. Interior design, kitchens, millwork, and finish carpentry get handed off to whoever the client can find near the site, which reintroduces the coordination risk that building off-site is supposed to eliminate.
Camphomes owns the entire process. Architecture, interiors, structural engineering, and fabrication sit under one roof, with no outside architect or general contractor handoff at the end. By integrating design, manufacturing, and permitting, Camphomes maintains quality control for each project under one roof. Above the foundation, nearly every component arrives on-site finished, including wall assemblies, interior paneling, millwork, and key pieces of furniture. Nothing is painted or wood-finished on site.
Falkiner argues that integrating the whole design process, manufacturing, and permitting is not a convenience, but the only route to the detailing buyers say they want and rarely get. “You could spend up to three years detailing out a reasonably high-end custom home, getting it down to the last eighth of an inch,” he says. “No architect has ever been given that amount of time, and nobody’s paying for that.” What does not get drawn gets improvised on site, which is where both cost and quality leak away.
High-Quality Materiality
Camphomes builds almost exclusively in teak, specifically plantation teak sourced from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama providing a clean, modern feel. While Falkiner says the wood is beautiful, it’s meant to leave a neutral, calming shell that owners fill with their own style and character rather than a designer’s signature. He’s after timelessness and durability. “We believe the homes we build should be of high quality, but simple and lightly decorated,” Falkiner says. “Very logical and refined, but in an understated way.”
The Bainbridge house is framed in solid laminated teak, structurally lab-tested by Universidad Tecnológica de Costa Rica, in a post-and-beam system left exposed inside the home and wrapped in continuous exterior insulation rather than conventional two-by-four framing. The teak is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, while marble, stone, and handcrafted millwork make up the rest.
Built for Generations to Come
The model breaks a home into units placed according to site offerings, then reconnects them through hallways, galleries, and breezeways with large windows and skylights that pull the landscape inside. Falkiner starts by locating the social spaces, then works outward. A great room, kitchen, and covered outdoor space carry the gathering, and outdoor rooms count as fully as indoor ones. At Bainbridge, skylights, deep glazing, and orientation toward winter light keep the house bright through a Pacific Northwest year.
That produces specific decisions. Grandparents get a suite that functions as its own building. Children and grandchildren get a unit where noise is not a problem. Every unit gains perimeter, which means two or three aspects of daylight instead of one.
Falkiner chose Bainbridge Island for the debut in part because it fit the brief. “You can imagine it as this multigenerational place where everybody can feel welcome and connected and a place everyone wants to come back to,” he says. “We hope that our homes become generational assets that get passed down.”
A Deliberately Small Pipeline
Camphomes is careful with the word prefab and scales much differently. Having moved beyond the start-up phase, the company is advancing its home-building capacity, aiming for up to eight homes by the end of 2027 and 50 homes a year within three years.
Falkiner is as careful with the word luxury as he is with prefab. Both arrive preloaded with the wrong picture. “We want to build luxury homes, but it’s not going to look like what many people think of when you talk about luxury homes,” he says. “It’s really about the experience of being able to live in a way that makes sense in whichever environment you’re in.” ■
Number of homes camphomes aims to build per year over the next three years
up from a goal of eight by 2027
