Meet the Owners
Brian and Amber started Meiste Homes in 1995, and it’s been a fun ride ever since. One thing that’s never changed? Their unrelenting dedication to providing the best service possible.
Brian’s passion for building started as a young boy. He was born and raised into farm life on a second generation farm. The family home he grew up in was also lived in by his Grandparents. He enjoyed driving tractors at a young age. He also had to work long and hard to help his Dad during planting and harvesting seasons. He was taught an amazing work ethic through the examples of his Grandpa and Dad, but in his spare time, he could be found building tree houses along with small pieces of furniture for his mom.
As his passion for building grew, his parents encouraged him to develop his building skills as an apprentice for other builders during the summers of high school and college.
After college, Brian decided he wanted to sell real estate. He received his real estate license in 1995. After working in real estate for a few months, he decided that he would rather be building homes using his hands and skills in carpentry. That same year, he decided to follow his entrepreneurial spirit by starting his own construction business.
In 1994, Brian married the love of his life, Amber. A year later, Brian built his first home for himself and Amber. He started by doing all the work himself–including the framing, roofing, siding, and trim carpentry. He hired a couple carpenters to work alongside him, including some of the same subcontractors we use today to do plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling, and concrete work.
For the next six years, that is how Brian Meiste Builders built homes. In 1998, Brian and Amber decided to build their second home and enter it into their first Parade of Homes in 1999. They received their first awards: Best Floor Plan, Best Kitchen, and Best Interior Design. From there, the business accelerated to a whole new level.
Brian Meiste Builders started getting more and more work, to the point that Brian had to make a decision to limit the amount of homes he built each year or to subcontract work so that he could build more homes. He wanted to keep the attention to detail that he had when doing the work himself, so he trained carpenters and decided to step away from the hands-on work. He had some lower back issues, and decided it would be a better route for him to take long-term. From that point on, he started performing sales meetings to sell the homes, did all the quoting, project management, and then subcontracted most of the work out to his team of trusted professional subcontractors.
Brian and Amber worked from their home office until about 2004. Their boys, Avery and Andrew, were getting quite busy and it became more and more difficult to have meetings with customers in their home.
Just before their youngest daughter Briella was born, they decided to find a new office space. At that point, they decided to rent office space to help separate family life and business. They found space to lease in The Crossings very near to their current location. Business continued to pick up and Brian sensed the need to hire an additional project manager. He hired Jon Faris as his first project manager. Jon now owns and manages Paradigm Renovation in partnership with Meiste Homes, and specializes in renovating and remodeling existing homes.
In 2006, the economy started to decline. Brian and Amber got creative and began to build homes in a development in Traverse City. Through the trials of a deep recession, the Meiste team made it through and are now an even stronger company than before.
In 2011-2012, business began growing again and Brian and Amber recognized they needed to move the office into a more visible spot. This decision also led them to change the company name to Meiste Homes as a marketing push to clearly define the company as a custom home builder. The space they currently occupy is located in The Crossings next to Salt & Pepper restaurant and At Home Realty.
Business continues to thrive, and Brian and Amber love seeing their customers’ dream homes come together. Through the ups and downs, Meiste Homes maintained their honesty and integrity, and continue to happily serve West Michigan as one of the leading custom home builders.