Cobblestone Builders - Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin

Tim N.

What a wonderful experience working with Stevie and Dirk from Cobblestone Builders. We moved into our new home in December and it is everything we thought it would be! The craftsmanship and attention to detail was exactly as Dirk described as we went through the building process. You can tell Stevie and Dirk were proud of their quality that they and their crew exhibited; absolutely great work by all. We visited the work site as the construction started and throughout the building process. Dirk and Stevie continued to dot all the I's and crossed all the T's in keeping us in the loop during the progress. The site was always cleaned up at end of the day and the crew was always polite and courteous. If there was ever an issue, Dirk would address it and have a quick remedy or resolution, always communicating in a timely fashion. Stevie was on top of the many choices regarding fixtures, flooring, carpeting, appliances, etc. She kept us in the loop with any issues with the suppliers and lead times. Since we've moved in, any issues we've had Dirk has addresed immediately. The finished product is beautiful! We love our new home and are proud to show it off to family and friends. We are also proud to of picked Cobblestone as our new home builders! We highly recommend Dirk and Stevie to be the custom builder you are looking for. Awesome experience!

Mary G.

We recently built a home with Dirk and Stevie of Cobblestone builders at The Kettle Ridge Condominiums on Pike Lake. As we are from out of state, we couldn’t have had a better experience with relying on their expertise and guidance throughout the process. Their attention to detail and the communication with us allowed us to make all the decisions with confidence.
We were very new to building a home from the ground up. Their patience with the myriad of questions from design to final product was very much appreciated. And today, we have a beautifully constructed, high quality home that we plan to enjoy for many years.
Overall, a wonderful experience and we wouldn’t hesitate to build with them again.
The Gorski’s, Mary and Jeff

Mike N.

In 2021 my wife Kelly and I were thinking about moving to the Menomonee Falls area and building a home. We researched a few builders online before meeting with Dirk and Stevie at Cobblestone Builders. The only thing we knew was that we didn’t want a ‘city sized’ lot or a ‘cookie cutter’ home offered by some builders. When we first met, Dirk patiently walked us through the entire custom build process and then took us to a house under construction. Once we walked through the Heritage model and saw the quality of the craftsmanship and the care and pride from Dirk and the team we were sure we found our next home. The next step was to find a lot that met what we wanted and Dirk was able to help find the right lot in Germantown.

Once we decided we were ready to start the build process Dirk and Stevie led us through every step to ensure we ended up with exactly what we wanted in our new home. The detailed planning process seemed almost exhausting at the time, but proved to be very successful in finalizing the plans and costs. This eliminated all of the unplanned ‘up charges’ we’ve heard about from others who have recently built with other builders.

The real thing that sets Cobblestone Builders above the rest is the quality and care shown not only by Dirk and Stevie, but by every one of their skilled sub contractors. The quality is not only in every finish that you see, but more importantly the quality in the structure, framing and everything else inside the walls that nobody will ever see.

We moved in three months ago and really love our home. If you are looking to build a high quality comfortable home with a team that really cares I highly recommend Dirk and Stevie at Cobblestone Builders.

Erin R.

PART 2 (see PART 1 from Theresa Rouse)

3) We had to spend a lot of time working through building solutions. We heard many times from Dirk that something couldn't be done because he couldn't or wouldn't work through problems to find solutions. I offered building solutions several times throughout the build that were ultimately used. We expected our builder to be able to help come up with solutions, not to have to do it ourselves. On this note, we generally had to spend a copious amount of time babysitting the job until we secured the aforementioned project manager. We had to be at the build site literally every day and caught many errors. The amount of time that we had to spend on this took us out of our lives and our own business to a degree that we never expected. Our own business suffered because we had no choice but to put so much of our energy into getting the house built if we ever wanted to see it finished.

4) Part of our personal time suck was having to find and manage our own subs for so many scopes of work as well. Many of the subs that Cobblestone brought to the table were either unwilling or incapable of doing the job well, which left us having to find and manage subs ourselves.

5) The worst part about this is that despite doing much of the finish work ourselves, Dirk is insisting on being paid the builder's fees associated with some of those scopes of work despite not finding, managing or being involved at all with those subs. He feels it's the right and ethical thing to do to attempt to extract over $30,000 for work they did not do. It's not even a question of whether they did this work - it is in black and white in a contractual addendum that we all signed that he would not perform said work yet he now expects to be paid for it. We feel completely and utterly taken advantage of because of this and don't think most people would disagree with us.

6) Cobblestone followed their contract sometimes and sometimes they didn't. He would say he was going against his contract to be "nice" sometimes, but then when he'd get mad about something he'd say he's no longer going to break his contract on our behalf in the same way he had been. Then he would change his mind and go back and forth. We never knew when he was going to reference his contract and when he was going to do something different.

Our mental health and our financial health have both suffered greatly because of this nearly two year horrific experience and it appears that isn't over due to the previously mentioned attorney now involved.

If you’re still considering hiring Cobblestone please do yourself two favors:

1) Have their contract reviewed and re-drafted by a competent attorney. It is drafted to favor them and them only. At the very least it should lean heavily neutral to protect both sides.

2) Pay attention to each and every draw and change order with eagle eyes. Keep spreadsheets. Be your own advocate for your funds. The bank will not protect you, but Dirk will tell you the bank cannot and will not release funds he hasn’t earned. This is untrue. Banks make mistakes and can/will let huge dollar amounts that are yet unearned be released.

R D.

My wife and I were apprehensive to build another home again after the poor experience we had with another builder years ago. Realizing we would not get exactly what we wanted in an existing home we decided to start looking for a potential builder. After researching and meeting with multiple builders it was clear to me Cobblestone Builders was the right builder for us. After Dirk and Stevie took us to see the other Cobblestone homes they were in the process of building and seeing the quality and detail in these homes, and the fact I could work directly with the owners of the company, I knew this was the right builder for us. From start to finish they worked with us every step of the way. I think their communications and the timeliness of their communications was outstanding. We appreciated how throughout the process they would validate the choices we made, went into detail to make sure we understood next steps, and allowed us to make changes along the way. With Cobblestone Builders we got exactly what we wanted in our new home. Our home is beautiful and we are proud to show our home to family and friends.

Pete S. J.

When my wife and I were contemplating building a new home, the first house we looked at was a Cobblestone home. After reading the reviews from other Cobblestone homeowners, seeing the quality of the home we visited and meeting Dirk, we knew we had found our new home builder. Dealing directly with Dirk and Stevie was so much better than dealing with some sales representative from a big box builder. Cobblestone Builders is their brand and their passion and it shows in every step of the building process.

From start to finish Dirk and Stevie were on top of everything. Communication was excellent. Pricing was very transparent, something you don’t see with other builders. I had the opportunity to speak with several of the associates that worked on our home, which is limited, because Cobblestone uses only the best. Every associate I spoke to had nothing but great things to say about Cobblestone Builders and the high-degree of quality work they expect from their associates.

We’ve been in our home for just over six months and we’re very happy with our new Cobblestone home.

Sharon B.

We are loving our new home recently built by Cobblestone Builders! Dirk and Stevie are so easy to work with. They understood our need for a ranch with ADA specifications and were able to give us wide doorways, a flat entrance from the garage directly into the laundry room and a beautiful walk-in shower in our master bath. We have been in our home for a month now and love it more every day!

Theresa R.

PART 1 (see review from Erin Rouse for PART 2)

Working with Cobblestone was one of the very worst experiences of our lives and easily the biggest, most costly mistake we have ever made. We didn't actually want to write a review because we felt pity on him for being so deeply incompetent throughout our build, but after getting a letter from their attorney suggesting that writing an honest, factual review would be considered "slander," we put our pity aside and have decided it's for the greater good of the community to understand what our experience was like working with Cobblestone to hopefully spare someone else the same horrible fate. Having an attorney contact us and use the word "slander" makes us feel like they want to silence us and that's just further proof that it's the right thing to do to share our experience.

The facts are this:

1) We wound up having to spend quite literally hundreds of thousands of dollars beyond the budget to get our build completed. Several line items were under-quoted by the tens of thousands. For example, one line item was quoted around $80k and wound up costing $190k (yes you read that right).  This was for something that was part of the original bid with NO CHANGE whatsoever to the original scope of work. Dirk's sub who initially quoted this bailed and Dirk could not provide us with a single additional quote. We had to personally find someone to complete this part of the job. Additionally, about halfway through the build we knew that if we ever wanted to finish it we needed additional help. We hired an Owner's Rep (someone competent and experienced with custom homes to help guide us through the build process) and a full-time project manager to get the job done. These people saved our sanity and kept the timeline moving, but we incurred huge fees that we did not anticipate having to incur when hiring Cobblestone as our builder.

2) The interpersonal relationship was deeply uncomfortable from the framing stage and beyond. Dirk and Stevie both got into yelling matches with us. I had to walk away from multiple meetings because their lack of accountability was so frustrating that I just had to step away. Most of the times when we wanted something fixed they would put up a fight about it instead of just fixing what needed fixing; they made us feel like they were more worried about the subs being upset at having to fix something than ensuring the quality of work was acceptable. They even tried to lean on "code" as a reason to not do something; when pushed about what the code actually said we were told to contact the inspector ourselves if we wanted clarification (turns out the code thing in this case was just a lie so as not to have to fix something, which ultimately got fixed because there was no code preventing the fix like we were initially told).

Continued in PART 2 review from Erin Rouse