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Homes like these.A website to match.

Ewing Builders is a family-owned custom home builder in Sussex County, Delaware. Before this, the only place to see their work online was Facebook. We filmed one of their finished homes from the air, photographed it on the ground, and hand-coded their first website around the footage.

The thirty second version, cut for our Instagram and Facebook.

Client: Ewing Builders
What they do: Custom homes, plus pole barns, additions, decks and remodels
Where: Sussex County, Delaware
What we made: The shoot, the film and their first website

The work was there. The website was not.

Ewing builds on their clients' own land, and every client deals with the two owners directly, from the first call to the keys. Before this project, none of that could be found on a search.

Facebook was the whole website.

Finished homes were scattered through a feed, between everything else in it. A family searching for a custom builder in Sussex County found other names first, and the ones who did find Ewing had no way to see the work room by room.

A big decision, made on a phone.

Nobody hires a custom builder in one sitting. People look at finished homes, work out how the process goes and how long it takes, and decide whether they trust the owners, mostly from a phone and mostly after work.

First, we shot one of their finished homes.

One house, one day, a drone and a camera. Every photograph was bracketed and merged so the white siding and the dark windows both hold detail, straightened so the walls stand true, and graded the same way as the footage, so the whole set reads as one job.

The finished house from the air: a white farmhouse with a dark shingle roof and a metal porch roof, on a wide lawn with corn fields behind it — Seven of the 37 finished photographs. There are no house names or addresses here, or on Ewing’s site: the homes belong to their clients.

Black double front doors with fall wreaths on the covered porch, between a white column and a carriage lantern — Seven of the 37 finished photographs. There are no house names or addresses here, or on Ewing’s site: the homes belong to their clients.

What came out of one day

37 photographs

Finished in full size, web and Instagram cuts.

16 drone clips

Graded the same way as the photographs and kept in 4K.

A 75 second film

The whole house, in 1080p and 4K.

Four reels

Cut for their social, each with and without music.

Day to night

A day-to-night video and three virtual twilights.

The homepage loop

Silent and seamless, from the same footage.

And the same frame after dark.

The house has downlights in its gables, and they only show at dusk. A virtual twilight takes the daytime photograph there. The house itself is not changed.

The front of the house in daylight under a clear blue sky — The photograph, as shot and finished.

Virtual twilight: the same frame at dusk, with downlights glowing in the gables and lit windows — Virtual twilight. The sky, the lighting and the rooms seen through the windows are generated with AI.

Then we built the website around it.

Written by hand from the first line, with nothing from a template. The design comes from a Sussex County back road: painted sign boards on timber posts, a builder's yard sign staked in a finished lawn, and a charcoal road with an orange line down the middle.

ewingbuildersde.com

The Ewing Builders homepage: drone footage of a finished home behind a sage green sign that reads Custom homes, built personally — The homepage opens on the film from the shoot, with the headline on a sign board like one staked at the edge of a lot.

The building process on the Ewing Builders homepage: numbered steps staked along a charcoal road with an orange dashed center line — The process as a road. The center line draws as you scroll, and each step's board stakes in as you reach it.

The film is the front door

The homepage opens on a silent loop cut from the drone footage and graded with the photographs, so the first thing anyone sees is a finished Ewing home.

Sorted by room, never by house

Every photograph lives on one page, as exteriors, kitchens, baths and the rest. No house is named and no address appears anywhere on the site.

An honest timeline

Eight steps from first call to welcome home, and a typical six to eight months from groundbreaking to occupancy, with what can stretch it said plainly.

Twelve towns, twelve real pages

Every pin on the county map opens a page for that town, written from its own permit, utility and flood facts rather than a template with the name swapped.

A sign with your name on it

Start your build is five short steps. As you answer, a lot sign paints itself with your family name and your land, then the whole thing goes straight to the owners.

The next step in reach

On a phone, Call us and Start your build ride along the bottom of every page, so the next step is always a thumb away.

The Ewing Builders homepage on a phone: the drone film above a sage sign board and an orange Start your build button — On a phone the sign overlaps the film, with Start your build under the thumb.

The homes section on a phone, with exteriors, kitchens and living spaces sorted by room — Homes sorted by room. Every photograph is a real Ewing build.

A map of Sussex County marking the twelve towns Ewing Builders builds in — The county map. Each town opens a page of its own.

The Start your build questionnaire on a phone, with a lot sign reading Future home of the blank family — Step one of five. The lot sign fills in from the visitor's own answers.

Does your website match your work?

If the work is better than the site, the site is still what a customer sees first. One call, and we will tell you what is worth building and what is not.

Start a project See the rest of the work