Townhome vs. Custom Build on Reynolds Mountain
The dream of a custom mountain home is a good one. But somewhere between the second year of construction, the third budget revision, and the permit that will not clear, a quieter question surfaces: what if the home you want already exists — built to the same standard, ready now?
Many of the people who tour Reynolds Mountain arrive having seriously considered building. They have the means, the taste, and often the experience of having built before. They know exactly what a beautiful mountain home should feel like — which is precisely why they understand what it takes to get there.
Building custom in Western North Carolina is not a weekend project. It is land you have to find and buy, site work on a slope, an architect, a builder, and the Woodfin and Buncombe County approval process — a process Reynolds Mountain knows firsthand, having watched its own phase delayed by local approvals, supply constraints, and a hurricane. Eighteen to thirty months is optimistic. And for all of it, you are the project manager.
A Reynolds Mountain Villa offers the other path. These are not production townhomes — they are paired villas built by Buchanan Construction to the same standard as their multi-million-dollar custom homes. The difference is that the work is already done. The quality is already in the walls. The view is already there. You do not build toward the life. You move into it.
These are not people who cannot build a custom home. They are people who have looked closely at what it costs — in time, money, and attention — and decided the trade is not worth it.
A custom build is two to three years of your life, minimum, before the first dinner on the terrace. For a buyer who is downsizing, relocating, or simply ready to enjoy the mountain now, that is the most expensive line item of all — and the only one you can never recover. A finished villa gives you those years back.
Custom builds are quoted optimistically and finished expensively. Site surprises, change orders, material costs, and carrying interest for the length of the build all push the real number past the original. A Reynolds Mountain Villa is a known, fixed price — from $895K in the Meadow Collection, from $1.15M in the Summit Collection — with no overruns waiting on the back end.
The hesitation is usually about quality — surely a finished villa cannot match what you would build yourself. But these villas are built by Buchanan Construction, the same crews and standards behind their $3M-plus custom homes. The quality is in the parts you never see, and it is already there. There is nothing to compromise.
Building custom means becoming, in effect, an unpaid project manager — fielding the calls, making the hundred decisions, chasing the permits, absorbing the delays. A villa means none of that. You choose it, you close, you live in it. The only project you manage is which chair faces the sunset.
The True Cost of Building
Every custom build begins with a number, and almost none of them end on it. The lot is the first surprise — finding a buildable mountain parcel with the right view, then paying for the site work, grading, and engineering that a slope demands before a single wall goes up. From there, the design phase, the bidding, and the build each carry their own months and their own overruns.
Then there is the part unique to this market. Western North Carolina, and Woodfin in particular, is not a fast or easy approval environment — Reynolds Mountain's own second phase was held up by exactly this. Layer in the post-pandemic supply and labor reality and the lingering effects of Hurricane Helene, and the timeline stretches further. Through all of it, you are exposed to interest rates and a moving market on a home you cannot yet live in.
None of this is an argument against building in principle. It is simply the honest accounting of what a custom build asks of you — and a fair comparison against a home that has already paid all of those costs and come out the other side.
What You're Actually Buying
The reason a Reynolds Mountain Villa is a real alternative to building — and not merely a faster, cheaper one — is that nothing was compromised to make it ready. Buchanan Construction builds Western North Carolina's finest custom homes, and the villas come off the same crews, to the same standard. With more than 20 years and 100-plus awards behind them, this is custom-home work in a finished form.
The standard shows up where it counts and where you cannot see it: insulation batts in every wall and ceiling so the home is quiet room to room, a Trex Rain Escape drainage system concealed beneath every upper terrace, Energy Star construction, and a 10-year warranty insured by Liberty Mutual. And unlike a home still on paper, these villas are proven — they came through Hurricane Helene without damage. A custom build is a promise. A finished villa is a fact.
An honest, side-by-side look for the buyer weighing both — because the right answer depends on what you actually want from the next few years.
In Fairness
There are buyers for whom building custom is genuinely the better choice, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. If you want a fully detached home on a private lot of your own choosing, if realizing a singular and specific architectural vision is the point rather than the home itself, and if the two-to-three-year process is something you will enjoy rather than endure — then build, and build well.
What is worth being honest about is how rarely all three of those are true at once, especially for buyers who are relocating, downsizing, or ready to be on the mountain now. For most, the appeal of building is really the appeal of the result: a beautiful, high-quality mountain home in a setting like this one. And that result is exactly what a Reynolds Mountain Villa already is.
The question, in the end, is not whether you could build something wonderful. It is whether you want to spend the next few years building it — or spend them living in it.
"We were ready to build.
Then we realized we were ready to live."
The Homes Themselves
Reynolds Mountain Villas are paired villas, not a row of townhomes: two homes per building sharing a single wall, with natural light on three sides. Every home is built by Buchanan Construction to custom-home standards, in a premier North Asheville community with over 7 acres of green space, a dog park, and trails to Reynolds Village at the base of the mountain.
The Summit Collection — fourteen villas with panoramic westward Blue Ridge views, move-in ready, from $1.15M — is the flagship. The Meadow Collection — twenty-eight villas ascending the mountain in tiers of elevation, views, and finishes, from $895K — is the attainable way into the same build quality. Both are lock-and-leave by design, with HOA-maintained exteriors and fully funded reserves.
Whichever you choose, the years of building are already behind it. The only thing left to do is move in.
Realistically 18 to 30 months from raw land to move-in, and often longer. That includes finding and buying a buildable lot, site work and engineering on mountain terrain, design, the Woodfin and Buncombe County approval process, and the build itself. Reynolds Mountain knows that timeline firsthand — its own second phase was delayed by local approvals, supply constraints, and Hurricane Helene. A finished villa removes the entire timeline.
The real cost of a custom build is rarely the quoted cost. Land, site preparation on a slope, design fees, change orders, and carrying costs during construction routinely push the number past the original, and you carry market and rate exposure the whole time. A Reynolds Mountain Villa is a known, fixed price — from $895K in the Meadow Collection and $1.15M in the Summit Collection — with no overruns on the back end.
Yes, because they are built by the same builder and crews as Buchanan Construction's $3M-plus custom homes, to the same standard. The quality is in the parts you never see: sound batts in every wall and ceiling, a Trex Rain Escape drainage system beneath every upper terrace, Energy Star construction, and a 10-year warranty insured by Liberty Mutual. The villas also came through Hurricane Helene without damage — a proven home rather than an unproven plan.
The villas are designed homes, not blank canvases, but they are not one-size-fits-all. Buyers can select finishes on units still in progress, and options such as a private elevator and an EV-ready oversized garage are available. The architecture is already resolved — so you get thoughtful design without managing the design process yourself.
Two collections, both built by Buchanan Construction. The Summit Collection offers fourteen paired villas with panoramic westward Blue Ridge views, move-in ready, from $1.15M. The Meadow Collection offers twenty-eight villas ascending the mountain in tiers, from $895K. To tour either, contact Alec Cantley at Premier Sotheby's International Realty: 828-333-9521.
The best way to settle the build-or-buy question is to stand inside a finished villa and see the quality for yourself. Alec Cantley, Global Real Estate Advisor with Premier Sotheby's International Realty, schedules private tours for qualified buyers. No pressure, no pitch — just a home that is already everything you were going to build.
Contact Alec Cantley directly: 828-333-9521