At Cates Fine Homes, we work with home-dreamers who appreciate individuality, integrity, quality and value. Our homes are distinctly different, and many of them feature details that few builders have the skill to build. Whether your dream home is a right-size nest or a spacious family home, we encourage you to think outside the ordinary tan box.
BUILD
IF AN ARCHITECT DRAWS IT, WE CAN BUILD IT.
QUALITY NEW HOME CONSTRUCTION
We’re an architectural builder
Our highly skilled carpenters and tradesmen are fully capable of building any architectural detail or style—and they love the challenge of building something they’ve never built before.
Quality homes over quantity
Cates approaches home building as a craft, not a production line. We are not a high-volume developer. You’ll never suffer the long-term disappointments of cost-cutting, cookie-cutter building practices.
We build amazing things
Other contractors wouldn’t dream of taking on the challenges that we embrace. If your pie-in-the-sky ideas have already been rejected by another builder, give us a call.
Videos
Bald Eagle Lake Residence
Extreme creativity in architectural design requires masterful construction. Designed by Michael Huber Architects and built by Cates Fine Homes.
Energy Efficient Home on Existing Foundation
This project began with responsible demolition, recycling nearly everything from the old, unsavable house. A home with a light carbon footprint will be built in its place.
Press
Arcitecture MN - June 2020
AIA Minnesota – December 2020
Project name: Electric Bungalow
Commendation for Excellence in Design for Energy
Location: St. Paul, Minnesota
Client: Thomas Fisher and Claudia Wielgorecki
Firm of record: Salmela Architect
Project partners: Meyer Borgman Johnson (Structural Engineering); Cates Fine Homes (Contractor)
Photo credit: Corey Gaffer
This is a three-bedroom, solar-powered, aging-in-place, environmentally friendly modern house with enough flexibility of form and fenestration to adapt to any lot. In other words, it aims to model a sustainable future for urban neighborhoods.
The jury highlighted this project’s exemplary job fusing sustainability with design, with a focus on reducing the project’s embodied carbon. They also appreciate the whimsical yet intentional fenestration, and detailing that feels modern yet respects the home’s residential context.
Dezeen – May 2021
Salmela designs Electric Bungalow in Minnesota for architecture professor
Jenna McKnight | 2 May 2021
American firm Salmela Architect has designed a solar-powered urban-infill house that is meant to demonstrate a new way forward for single-family housing.
Called Electric Bungalow, the project in Saint Paul, Minnesota, was designed for Thomas Fisher, a longtime architecture professor at the University of Minnesota, and his wife, Claudia Wielgorecki.