Nautilus Street · Port Aransas
232, 236 and 240 Nautilus went up side by side on one schedule, with one crew, one set of inspections and one driveway pour. From a cleared lot in November 2022 to finished exteriors in about ten months.
The brief
Three lots side by side on a residential street a short drive from the beach. The aim was three distinct houses, each with its own porch, balcony and face to the street, built as one job so that crews, deliveries and inspections ran once for all three.
Building three at once leaves nowhere to hide a delay. A late delivery or a failed inspection on one house holds up the next. On this coast the schedule also has to fit the weather: framing and dry-in through the spring, roofs on before the heart of hurricane season.
Then & today
240 Nautilus: the cleared lot in November 2022, and the finished house from the air.
Nov 2022
Today
Timeline
Every stage below is a dated site photograph from the job. The three houses moved through them a week or two apart.
17 Nov 2022
Silt fence around the site before any work starts, so the sand stays where it is.
6 Dec 2022
Fill brought in and compacted, the plumbing roughed in below where the slab will be.
Jan 2023
240 goes first: walls up on 6 January, the ground floor framed by the end of the month.
Feb 2023
Open-web floor trusses and subfloor, then the upper walls. 236 was framed in about four weeks.
Mar 2023
Rafters on, and the structural sheathing starts going on the lower walls.
May 2023
The houses wrapped in taped structural sheathing; windows set against it.
Jun 2023
Porch roofs and balconies framed into the house, ahead of the siding.
Jul 2023
Siding goes on from mid-June; by late July the fronts are clad.
10 Aug 2023
Architectural shingles on all three houses together, before the peak of hurricane season.
Sep–Oct 2023
Driveways poured together on 12 September, rear balconies finished on the 25th, the last front complete in early October.
The three
Each with its own plan, porch and colour.
New build · 2023
The largest of the three, with a front porch, a covered balcony off the upper floor and three bedroom suites. Its slab went in first in December 2022; its front was finished last, on 7 October 2023.
New build · 2023
The middle house and the tightest plan: three suites, an open kitchen and living space, a front porch and a rear balcony in the narrowest footprint. With neighbours on both sides and a shared schedule, every lift and pour was planned around the houses either side.
New build · 2023
The first out of the ground, so its pace set the street’s. A full-width porch stacked on a full-width balcony, both railed in cedar, so most of the front of the house is outdoor room, and both framed into the house so the wind cannot take them first.
Inside
Kitchens, baths and a back patio from the three houses.
Questions
What owners and investors ask about a job like Nautilus Street.
About ten months from cleared lots in November 2022 to finished exteriors in September and early October 2023. A new house here typically takes ten to fourteen months from permit to keys; building three as one job put this one at the short end.
No. These lots allowed slab-on-grade construction, so the houses sit on concrete slabs with the plumbing run underneath. Whether a lot needs pilings depends on its flood zone and base flood elevation, which we check at feasibility before anything is drawn.
It saves time and repetition: one mobilisation, shared deliveries, inspections booked together, one roofing day and one driveway pour. Under cost-plus those savings show up directly in the invoices you see, rather than inside a fixed price.
Every new house on the Texas coast needs a WPI-8 windstorm certificate, and we build every house to be inspected for one in stages as the work goes up, before walls are closed.
More of our work
Tell us where it is and what you hope to build. We will tell you what the lot allows, what it costs to build on, and whether we are the right firm for it.
