About Us
In 1988, Cathy and Steve Vess started a business building top-notch homes in and around Northern Virginia. In 2004, they were completing a home for themselves. As passionate horse owners, they also wanted to build a barn.
They ended up designing a custom barn – that also served as their home! Their dream home allows them to look out their window and watch their horses graze, gallop and enjoy a good roll in the grass!
When people saw their new home, many were inspired and asked for Cathy and Steve’s help building something similar. Wanting give this unique lifestyle to other horse lovers, they decided to focus full time on creating homes with built-in barns.
And with that, We Build Barns was born. Since officially opening their doors, Cathy and Steve have built dozens of custom homes to fit a wide range of budgets – without sacrificing quality. They have poured their love and expertise into each home and take immense pride in their hands-on approach with each homeowner.
Quality materials add to the charm of these completely one-of-a-kind barns. Cathy and Steve refuse to work with cookie-cutter barn templates, and they never build cheap, unsafe barns.
“We focus our attention on safety and maintenance, so that the homeowner doesn’t have to,” Cathy says.
Shoddy barns can put horses at serious risk. “One wrong kick in a cement block barn can sideline your horse for months, or even forever,” Cathy says. “A closed-in barn with poor ventilation, bacteria and virus-infested wood will quickly spread an illness through all your horses.”
We Build Barns puts the wellbeing of your horses above all else. This is horse housing the way it’s meant to be, accounting for their natures and their needs, and providing a safe, comfortable, durable barn for them to thrive.
Cathy and Steve have a wonderful set of sub-contractors they use on every job. “It helps with consistency and an overall good job,” Steve says. “Our oldest son, Chase, is a project manager, and we have two other young men who work with him who all went to Fredericksburg Christian School together. Good Boys!”
While you flip through photos of beautiful homes Cathy and Steve have built, you will see a wide variety of designs. They believe that if you can dream it, they can build it. Steve and Cathy Vess are no strangers to finding ways to save money and make a budget work without cutting any corners.