During his more than 30 years’ experience in the construction industry, including a stint working for the Walt Disney company, Tory Garcia has developed building and design techniques producing a style that stands the test of time.
Makena Built, which he founded in 2004, focuses on creating beautiful, timeless homes that are current in their design, but not trendy. “We don't want to build a home that looks great in 2024, but in 2026, everybody can look at that house and know the exact year it was built because of some fad that was followed,” he says. “We work with a couple of wonderful designers in town that share our mentality from a design and style standpoint, but also from a structure, systems and science standpoint.”
He and his team are with clients every step of the way from the preliminary design stages and choosing tile and paint colors to the final walkthrough. “We do a lot of design builds, and we’ve developed a model that makes that process fun and easy instead of stressful.”
What Garcia loves the most about what he does is that his days are never the same. “They change with every project, and I like the creative aspect of it,” he reflects. “As I've gotten older and have been in the industry longer, I'm most attracted to the design side and coming up with fresh, new ways of doing things and then seeing them implemented.”
One of the new and innovative features that homeowners are looking for today is high efficiency, so that means using better insulation methods to ensure that homes are tighter, healthier, and cleaner. Updated designs, like the desire for one and sometimes two offices, are still in high demand. One client is even having Garcia and his team build a large home gym.
Instead of breakfast or dining nooks, large islands with seating have become the norm. People are also getting away from formal dining rooms in favor of those that can be used for everyday living instead of a few times a year.
Of course, certain designs never go out of style. “Smart layouts of homes, such as spaces that work well together and flow seamlessly from one space to another — such as the great room concept — continue to be very popular,” Garcia notes.
Since Makena Built is operating in the Pacific Northwest, he and his team design for its specific climate. “We spend a good amount of time building in the Valley, and everything in the Valley is about water management. Our focus is slightly different in Bend, but it all comes down to managing the climate outside and making sure that houses are comfortable and healthy year-round whether it's 100 degrees or zero degrees. We've always built well above energy code.”
One recent home (featured here and on the following pages) is a perfect example of timeless design specific for the climate of Central Oregon. This single-level 4,400 square foot home features four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms in a quiet area of Tumalo, chosen by the homeowners for the privacy and acreage found here. According to Garcia, this home was built using Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF), basically a bunch of foam lego blocks stacked together and filled with concrete. “ICF offers a very highly effective insulation value, is impervious to bugs and moisture intrusion, extremely quiet and literally bullet-proof.” This home also boasts full radiant floor heating.
Garcia reflects upon a project he undertook early in his career, and the knowledge he gained from the homeowner. “My client worked for the tech company Tektronix®, and he was a very intelligent engineer. Under his direction, we were doing things in his house long before the industry had caught up to some of what he had researched, calculated and figured out.”
This included reflectivity of the roofing and the way that the windows were installed. For example, calculating the angle of the sun meant it never shone through the windows in the summertime, but in the wintertime, when the sun's lower in the sky, it would shine through the windows to add warmth. “It was a very high performance house and started my journey towards very high efficiency homes.”
He loves the challenge of learning new things, and is always willing to research a technique and then perform it at the highest level. “It's interesting and I get bored if I don't have new challenges,” reflects Garcia.
When a project is complete and the homeowners walk through, he wants them to feel like it’s perfectly suited to them. “I want it to be like their house gives them a hug when they walk in the door,” says Garcia. “I want it to feel like every item is in the right spot and they love all their selections and everything we put into the house at their direction.”
OregonCustomHomeBuilder.com
"... it all comes down to managing the climate outside and making sure that houses are comfortable and healthy year-round..."
— Tory Garcia, Owner of Makena Built
"We’ve developed a model that makes the process fun and easy instead of stressful,”
— Tory Garcia, Owner of Makena Built