Luxury Custom Home Builder in Camas, WA
Kalen Development builds custom homes in Camas and across Clark County from an office on C Street in Vancouver. Dan Kalen has run the company for more than twenty years and put up over 100 homes in Washington and Oregon, including one on the 2025 NW Natural Street of Dreams. At this level the finish is what you are buying, and Dan is still on his own job sites while it goes in.
Selected Work
A cross-section of what we have built across Washington and Oregon over the past twenty years.
Caldera Springs Modern
Columbia House
Heritage House
Design and Planning
Most high-end homes are compromised long before anyone breaks ground, and usually in the same way: expensive drawings that were never priced against what they actually cost to build. By the time a real number exists, the design is finished and every correction is a subtraction.
We do it in the other order. Dan sits down with you and your architect early, while the drawings are still cheap to change, and prices the design as it develops. Rooms get sized for the way you cook, work and have people over. Selections are made once, deliberately, with the whole house in view rather than one room at a time.
How We Build
One team carries the job from foundation to final walkthrough. You will know what was finished last week, what is scheduled next and where the budget stands, because we tell you before you have to ask. Our subcontractors on this side of the river have worked with us for years, and that continuity is most of what keeps a build on schedule.
Foundation & Framing
Get the structure right and everything after it becomes easier.
Materials
Chosen once, chosen well, and specified for how they hold up here.
Finish Work
The last five percent is what you see every day. It gets the most attention.
Inspections
Every phase is checked before the next one starts, not discovered at the end.
Final Walkthrough
We walk the finished house with you, room by room, before handover.
Building in Camas, WA
Our office is on C Street in Vancouver, so Camas is home ground rather than a market we expanded into. Two Clark County builds show what that looks like: Columbia House, a 3,279 square foot modern farmhouse near the Vancouver Waterfront with a separate 740 square foot accessory dwelling and its own garage, and Northview House in Ridgefield, 3,556 square feet of board-and-batten built around a double-island kitchen.
One practical note worth knowing early: homes inside Camas city limits are permitted by the city, while unincorporated parcels nearby go through Clark County. The two have different submittal requirements and different timelines, and sorting out which one governs your lot before the drawings are finished is the simplest way to protect a schedule.
The Finish
Engineered oak floors, custom cabinetry, quartz and granite counters, heated floors in the primary suite, spa-style baths, trim that returns properly at every corner. Specifications like that are common in this market and mean very little on their own. What matters is who is on the job in the final months, and whether anyone checks the work before it is painted over. Ordering good cabinetry takes an afternoon. Making sure it is scribed properly to a wall that is not perfectly plumb takes somebody who has done it for years. Walk the portfolio and judge it for yourself.
Start the Conversation
The first conversation is free and there is no script to it. Bring a lot, a set of plans, or nothing but an idea, and we will tell you plainly what it would take to build it well in Camas — including when the honest answer is that the budget and the drawings do not yet agree. Contact us when you are ready.