Custom homes & renovations · Since 1979
Who we are
Many clients arrive with the same question underneath all the others: will the house I’m imagining be the one I live in? We’ve spent forty-five years making the answer yes. Meet the firm.
Selected work
Finished houses all photograph well. Look instead at where trim meets stone and how a ceiling resolves. That’s where builders differ.
The Wall Street Journal · June 2025
A new house in Birmingham for an owner who wanted complete symmetry, down to the absence of a single visible handle or hinge, and who assembled a world-class team to get it. Every joint between steel, glass, and wood is on show, so every one had to be right.
The full story →
Renovation & addition · Lakefront, Metro Detroit
A shingle cottage on the lake, taken to the studs and expanded: new rooms that read as original, porches to the water, and a kitchen at the center. The architect’s intent was that the new work look as if it had always been there. We worked closely with the architect to understand that intent, then brought in the trades best suited to the detailing it asked for.
The full story →Today’s photographs. The selection changes every day.
How we work
A good house is rarely one grand gesture. It’s a thousand small ones: where a seam falls, how trim returns to a wall without a shadow line, what’s behind the finish where no one will look. You won’t name them. You’ll feel them every time you walk in.
Early budgets always carry some placeholders, because not everything is known at the start. Ours are built from experience and recent quotes, and we tell you which numbers are firm and which are still estimates. When one moves, you hear it from us early, with options in hand.
The project lead and superintendent who start your project are the ones who finish it. You’ll know them by name, and they’ll know your house. Regular written updates, even when the update is “nothing new.”
We take the schedule seriously. But when an extra day of thought makes the work better, we take the day, and we tell you why. The day is forgotten by the time you move in. The work is there for as long as the house is.
Then, now, next
Mosher Dolan is founded by Doyle Mosher and Todd Dolan. Their commitment to quality, and to getting things right rather than merely done, becomes the culture the firm still builds by: care for the details, candor with clients, and the patience to do the work properly.
Dave Engel joins Mosher Dolan as a Challenge Detroit fellow and spends the next decade learning the work from Doyle, Todd, and the rest of the team, with both founders still in the building and on the job sites the whole way through.
The next generation carries the work forward, still guided by the one before it. The same care for the details, in the room from the first drawing and still paying attention long after the last one.
Two founders, many talented managers, and a way of working handed down person to person for forty-five years, with partners, project leads, superintendents, and trades each leaving their mark on it. The work has been honored in every decade since the first.
The whole story, and the people →In their words
“We interviewed four builders. Mosher Dolan wasn’t the cheapest bid we got, and they weren’t promising the fastest timeline. What they were honest about was where the real costs were, where we could pull back without regretting it, and where we shouldn’t. Two years in, that’s the part we appreciate most — they told us the truth, and the house reflects it.”Mike — Bloomfield Hills
“Our youngest was four when we moved in. She’s eleven now. The house still works the way they said it would, and they still pick up the phone when we have a question. That wasn’t something I thought about when we were choosing a builder. Now I’d put it near the top of the list.”Jennifer — Birmingham
If you’re thinking about a house, we’d like to hear about it. (248) 258-9453, or write to us.
