170 Custom Homes on Lake Norman, and a Website That Finally Does Them Justice
Patrick Joseph Designer Homes has built more than 170 fully custom homes around Lake Norman, North Carolina.
Waterfront builds in Cornelius, Davidson and Mooresville, many of them well into seven figures. If you've driven the lake, you've seen their work.
The problem was that nobody online could tell.
Michael Shalvoy founded PJD more than twenty years ago and built it on referrals and reputation. In March 2025, Quinn van Niekerk bought the company, bringing more than twenty years of commercial and residential construction experience and a philosophy PJD has always lived by: "We don't chase trends. We design homes that will still feel right decades from now."
New ownership is a rare chance to reintroduce a company to its market. Quinn wanted to make it count.
Someone spending seven figures on a custom home shops with their eyes first. They hear a builder's name at dinner or drive past a jobsite sign, pull up the website on their phone, and decide in seconds whether this builder works at their level.
PJD's work belonged in that conversation. Its website didn't. Twenty years of photography, renderings and finished homes sat with no structure, and no path from "that exterior is beautiful" to "I understand how this company thinks." For a design/build firm that solves architecture, interiors and site together, the old site told the wrong story.
Quinn wanted a killer image-looking website. We wrote the brief in five words:
Make it showcase the homes. The brief, in five words.
Before designing a single page, we refined PJD's color palette and typography so the site would feel as considered as the homes. Bone, charcoal, clay and sage, pulled from the materials PJD builds with. One typeface in three weights. Nothing louder than the architecture.
Most builder websites lead with claims every competitor also makes. This one leads with the house: full-bleed imagery, dark surfaces that let glass and light read, and copy set like captions.
Two ways in. A gallery sorted by room for the buyer who's browsing, and long-form project stories for the buyer who's ready to understand how PJD thinks.
Fourteen screens and boards from the build: the homepage, the gallery, a full project story, the team, and the refined brand system underneath it all.
Quinn can reorder the gallery himself as new homes are finished, so the strongest homes always lead.
A refined brand palette, a new type system and a custom website, live on pjdhomes.com in July 2026, with search and Google Business Profile set up from day one.
Two decades of custom work organized into a gallery and project stories that show buyers exactly what PJD builds.
PJD kept TradeMade on after launch to run its ongoing digital marketing: search, Google Business Profile, content and reviews, so the new brand keeps working long after the launch.
I just wanted a killer image-looking website and I think you've done it. It just looks appealing. It's exactly what I was looking for.
— Quinn van Niekerk, Owner and President, PJD Homes
Buyers judge your website the way they judge your homes. If the site looks cheaper than the work, they assume the work is too.
Sort your portfolio for the buyer's question. They want to see kitchens and lake houses.
Explain your decisions. One page on why a room was built the way it was sells harder than a list of finishes.
Launch day is the starting line. The builders who win keep the brand working every month after.
TradeMade is the brand and growth partner for residential contractors: identity, websites, print, signage and the digital marketing that keeps it all working. Building homes at this level and your brand doesn't show it? Tell us what you're building.
For premium residential contractors who want a brand that finally matches the quality of their work. Our sweet spot runs $3M and up, but if you have built something real, tell us what you are building.
