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Service area · Highland, UT
Highland is a big lot city by design, and that shapes almost every project in it. The house is rarely the only thing going on the property. Blackbird draws the plans and builds the job, out of Provo. Danny Bird has been building since 2001.
The local picture
Highland is the way it is because of water. Christian Beck homesteaded a hundred and sixty acres out of Alpine in 1869. Without water rights, the bench was good for spring grazing and nothing else. That is what Lehi, American Fork and Alpine used it for.
So the valley floor below got farmed and then cut into house lots. The bench just sat. When it finally developed, it developed as big lot housing, and the zoning locked that in. The R-1-40 district allows one home per forty thousand square feet, with a minimum lot width of one hundred thirty feet.
The result is a city of big houses on big ground, most of it built from the eighties on. Those houses are now old enough to want real work. And the lots almost always have room for more.
A finished Blackbird project in Provo. We have no completed project photos from Highland to show yet.
Planning a large lot
Most Highland owners build three or four things over a decade. The cheapest version is the one planned as a whole.
Shops, detached garages and RV parking are among the most requested structures on a Highland lot. Where they go decides where the driveway goes. And the driveway decides everything else about how the property works.
Water has to leave an acre somewhere. Set the finished grades, swales and hard surfaces once, in one plan. That is far cheaper than regrading around each new project as it lands.
Power, gas, water and drainage out to a shop, a pool house or an outdoor kitchen are long runs on a lot this size. Trenching once, and leaving stubs for later, costs almost nothing extra. Trenching three times costs three times.
If a wing, a garage bay or a second story is even a maybe, say so early. A roof line and a foundation can be built ready for it. Adding that support later is where additions get expensive.
Ground and paperwork
The bench is built from material shed off the Wasatch, then reworked by ancient Lake Bonneville into deltas and terraces. That means gravel and cobble in places. Great support and great drainage. But slower, costlier digging and trenching than the finer soils out on the valley floor. On a long run across an acre, it adds up.
Dry Creek runs through the area, and the Wasatch fault zone runs along the base of the range just east of town. That is not a reason for alarm. It is a reason to spend a little on a geotechnical look before you design a foundation. That is a soil and rock study by an engineer. Also check your parcel on the Utah Geological Survey's public geologic hazards map. Anyone can do that for free.
Highland reviews your application once it is complete, with all required documents in it. A deposit is due when construction plans go in. The fastest permit is always the one that never came back for missing structural calculations.
Everything Blackbird does
On an acre, most owners do more than one of these. Planning them together is usually cheaper than doing them one at a time.
We work out what the whole property will become. That happens before the first piece gets built and boxes in the rest.
A line by line budget covering the house and the site. On a Highland lot, those are two different projects sharing a driveway.
This role is called an owner's representative. We check another builder's bids, contracts, work and bills for you.
One contract for design, budget, permits and building. One person answers for all of it.
New homes on the acreage Highland has left, designed around how you will use the whole lot.
Offices and shops fitted out, remodels, and small business buildings. In Highland and across Utah County.
Townhomes and multi-family projects. In Highland those go through site plan and architectural design review.
The most common Highland project. Big houses from the eighties, nineties and two thousands, now due for real work.
Big footprints mean big basements. At that size, the layout, the escape windows and the mechanical plan matter more, not less.
Covered patios, outdoor kitchens and sport courts. Plus the paving and grading that make an acre feel designed instead of empty.
Questions
Nearby
Highland sits between Alpine and American Fork, with Lehi just west.
House, shop, addition, back yard, or all of it in the right order. The first talk is free, and it is with Danny.
Or call or text (385) 334-5658