There’s no place like home, especially when that home is created with a client’s particular vision in mind. With a sterling 16-year reputation in Toronto’s high-end construction sector, Elviano Homes Ltd. recognizes the importance of expert design, quality materials, and experienced trades, along with enduring, open and consistent communication in order to create “forever homes” for valued customers.
Elviano strives to provide top-notch services for every project, utilizing 3D renderings, competitive pricing, and a commitment to excellence that sets the company apart from competitors.
“We think of ourselves as a one-stop shop,” says Pooya Sayyadi, Vice President, Operations. “We like to start off with the clients from their planning stage, understand what they want to do within their property and what they’re envisioning.” Once Elviano has that feedback, the design phase follows, allowing the company to understand client criteria and needs. Based on that, a preliminary plan is created for the client’s review.
“Once we know the clients are comfortable and the plans are within their criteria, we submit that to the city,” says Sayyadi. “Then we do all the building permit work, and once the permits are ready and issued, we demolish if there’s a house on the property, and then we build.”
Fostering close relationships with everyone involved in a project is key to ongoing success, he says, along with Elviano’s distinctive and exquisite design ideas and its efficient, meticulous work ethic, all of which have contributed to the success of this family-owned firm.
“What’s a little bit different with us is that when the construction phase is done, a lot of the finishing details in the house are done by our own co-workers,” says Sayyadi. “Because we have that capability of building the finishings and the furniture ourselves, we plan ahead. In our design phase we plan a lot of the illuminations and where the HVAC vents are going to be.”
Elviano pre-plans for “everything,” he adds, including all detailed construction work, potential problems they might face in the future, and even building the right furniture for the house.
“That’s where we finish off,” he says. “Then, if there’s any maintenance or any help the clients may need in the future, we’re always there to provide that.”
Elviano prides itself not only on working with clients until they’re satisfied with what they see, but also on building homes in a timely manner while creating designs that reflect current market desires, and staying within budget.
“We try to really take care of the entire process because it’s time-consuming and clients don’t have that time to invest in building the house,” says Sayyadi. “We really try to support them in making it as time-efficient as possible.”
Elviano also doesn’t work with investors, as properties are developed with their own investments through the company, along with clients it does project management for. “We don’t have any other investors in our company or any other properties that we’re doing work with through investors.”
Although Elviano has faced the recent challenges of how COVID has changed workloads and daily lives, along with supply chain issues that have impacted pricing, it has remained committed to its goal of keeping estimates steady in the face of ongoing fluctuation.
“Because the time span for a project can range anywhere from three months for a design project to two or three years for a construction project, our biggest challenge is understanding the timing of things and being able to estimate in a way so we don’t have to go back and change the pricing that we’ve done,” says Sayyadi. “However, we have high hopes that everything’s going to balance out and go back to normal.”
In an industry where price ranges are vastly affected by different shortages, it can be difficult when building a wide range of houses priced from $5 million to a whopping $17 million. Elviano’s $17 million home, located at Yonge and York Mills in Toronto, is truly spectacular, boasting an indoor basketball court, home theatre, gym, pool, backyard soccer field, firepit, and outdoor kitchen.
“It was a pretty cool project, and one of the first projects where we tried to do all the finishings ourselves,” says Sayyadi. “All the furniture and all the finishings, feature walls, hand railings. A lot of the work has been either custom-designed by us or actually built in our workshop. It was one of the projects that really pushed us forward.”
This impressive accomplishment was due in part to having that workshop set up and being able to create finishes to the client’s liking.
“What’s really difficult in building houses is when it gets to finishing it’s very time-consuming and very hard to finish the little details of the house perfectly,” Sayyadi says. “But when you have the workshop, if something’s not to your liking it’s always easy to adjust and fix. The more time passes the better the finishing get, so it was really a big accomplishment as we were struggling with finding groups that could do the finishing for us. That’s one of the reasons we decided to do them ourselves.”
With finding skilled labour also being hampered by the pandemic, Elviano’s ability to fulfill projects in-house allows the company to take control of every aspect of a project. “We really like to keep our group together,” says Sayyadi. “We’re not interested in having co-workers that are just there for a while. We really want to have our people be happy in the company and enjoy it and really want to stay within.”
He adds that it can be a challenge to find the right people. “It makes our life very hard to find these good people, but we’re happy that we found the group that we have now because it’s pushed us forward,” he says. “A lot of companies are struggling with finding people to work, but we’ve been able to keep our people. We’ve been blessed in that sense.”
Looking forward, Elviano aims to further establish the furniture side of its business and continue to help clients get the best furnishings during the final phase of house construction.
“We’re really invested in getting our furniture to the best quality possible and being able to produce any kind of furniture you can imagine, plus do it locally so it doesn’t affect our programming in terms of time,” Sayyadi says. “We control our lead times and make sure the house is turnkey and move-in ready at the time that we promise our clients.”
Again, putting clients first and helping them achieve their desired goals remains at the heart of the company’s competitive advantage.
“I think there are a lot of businesses that are also very good in the industry, and I don’t want to compare ourselves with other people. I don’t see them as competitors, but as people who work in the same industry as us,” says Sayyadi. “There are a lot of other good project managers and other good designers in the industry, but our vision is we do only projects that we love. When we take on a project we want to make sure that everything in that project goes well and there’s nothing off about it or something that doesn’t make sense. We really go into detail.”
To that end, Elviano’s different phases of work involve fully embracing those detail-oriented aspects to ensure everything goes as planned. This approach allows Elviano to take pride in presenting the finished project to the client and seeing the client use the space. This involves “lots of pre-planning” well in advance via 3D software used to render images showing how the house will look prior to work ever beginning.
“It gives great detail in terms of a vision of how the house is going to look before we even start building,” Sayyadi says. “So if we see any problems we change it prior to construction rather than having to do a lot of changes of plans during construction.”
This detailed 3D rendering provides much appreciated assistance, he adds, particularly with high-detail homes, allowing clients to view all aspects of design beforehand, saving both time and energy for all involved. That attention to care and detail is an essential aspect of Elviano’s overall process, and one that can be found throughout its entire company culture.
“We’re really family-oriented,” says Sayyadi. “Our company is a family company and no matter how big we grow, we’re accustomed to that family feel. We don’t even like to say we have ‘employees,’ because we see everybody as our co-workers. We’re working together to achieve our goal. Our relationship with our coworkers is like family, and everybody who comes into our office will get that feeling,” he says.
“We really love what we do, and we want to understand the families that we’re building homes for,” says Sayyadi. “We really incorporate their needs and how their family will function better within that house, and create that for them. It’s a practical home that they can use and also have it be their forever home. We really take pride in that.”
