About the Company
Velvet Sun Builders, Inc is a licensed Florida General Contractor (#CGC1520778) and was founded in 2004 by Allen Wright. We have built over 75 projects approaching $65M in volume consisting of mostly new “high-end” residential single-family homes, including several extensive renovations, and small-scale commercial projects along the beautiful emerald coast of the Florida panhandle. We started in 2004 by focusing on our own investment properties in the highly successful St Joe neighborhoods such as WaterColor and WaterSound. We soon were asked to start building custom homes in the same communities. We are now an approved builder in many other neighborhoods along 30-A such as Seaside, Village of White Cliffs, The Retreat, and Draper Lake. We have also built beautiful homes in Caribe located in Miramar Beach/Destin and in the bayfront neighborhood of Botany Bayou located in Santa Rosa Beach. We have built several commercial projects in Pier Park (Lizard Thicket, Naples Soap Co, Freshii), 30Avenue (Freshii), and just recently completed a project (Lizard Thicket) in Destin Commons. We also built Dr. Norm’s veterinarian clinic in Panama City Beach as well as several significant renovations of Airstream trailers for a few restaurants (Barefoot BBQ, Queen Bee Cupcakes) in Seaside. Some of our more vast projects include very beautiful beach front homes in Seagrove Beach, Grayton Beach, highlighted by a home that was the most expensive home to resale on 30-A (outside of Rosemary Beach) at the time of the transaction in early 2017 at $9.8M. We are currently building a large beautiful beachfront home in Seacrest Beach.
We have strived to develop and maintain a strong reputation for quality construction and exceptional service to our customers. We have been fortunate to have several repeat customers who have invested in multiple construction projects with us; hence, much of our work is negotiated with our clients. Due to Allen’s background, we manage our projects similarly to commercial projects. Our projects are always supervised by an experienced superintendent/project manager. Our proposals are very detailed and comprehensive. Our accounting software is versatile and powerful software that is used by many larger commercial general contractors, and it allows us to provide a wide range of job costing reports to our clients, from simple to very sophisticated reports, especially for those customers desiring to partner with “cost plus” type agreements.
“All You Have is Your Reputation”
We understand this at Velvet Sun Builders, and our company culture is based upon the principals of being detail-oriented, possessing strong communication skills, being honest and fair, practicing deeds of integrity, being passionate and enthusiastic, and utilizing experience and creativity to resolve problems.
About the owner
Allen Wright graduated with a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Southern University in 1984 and has gained over 34 years of vast construction experience throughout his career. Allen has worked in many types of construction, including working overseas in Germany and India where he supervised a $200M + industrial project in 1984-86. After working overseas, he returned to Atlanta and worked for a track-type Texas homebuilder. Eventually, Allen decided to make a change to commercial construction where he both supervised and managed over 120 commercial projects from Ocala, FL to Glendale, AZ. His 10 years+ of commercial experience includes building banks, gas stations, restaurants, automotive retail, car washes, retail shopping centers and schools. Allen also successfully started, owned and operated a commercial concrete business in the metro Atlanta area, completing over 1200 commercial projects since 1997, while working for some of the most respected commercial general contractors in the Atlanta market. In 2004 he started Velvet Sun Builders and managed it concurrently with his concrete business. In 2009, due to the poor economy, Allen decided to close his concrete business in Atlanta and focus full-time on Velvet Sun Builders, Inc in Florida.
In short, Allen possesses the experience, detail orientation, communication skills, integrity, and honesty that he not only brings to his clients, but also maintains with his employees, his partnerships, his subcontractors, architects, and engineers. With these qualities, Allen also brings his creative intuition to help improve every project and help his clients receive, “more bang for the buck.”
Allen and his family moved fulltime to Seagrove Beach in 2007 and currently are happy residents of South Walton County. His daughters Allie (27) and Melissa (24) both attended South Walton High School, both played on the girls’ soccer team, and both have since graduated from the University of Florida and North Florida University respectively. Allen’s wife, Darla, is intimately involved with Velvet Sun Builders. She currently oversees all accounting and payroll responsibilities and she assists Allen in project management, home design, and interior design. She has also worked in the construction industry since 1984 and is a current member of the ASID.
Allen and Darla have been involved with several local community organizations and charities, predominately the Children’s Volunteer Health Network, and have supported the Cottages for Kids event when it was in Rosemary Beach. They also supported the South Walton High School girls’ soccer team, the cheerleaders, the basketball team and routinely donate to “Caring and Sharing”.
