About Rivendale Homes · Austin, Texas

About Rivendale Homes: Your Luxury Living Partner

32 years of homebuilding. More than 1,000 homes. One founder, since 1994 — building in Austin since 2011.

Years Homebuilding

Years in Austin

1,000⁺

Homes Delivered

20⁺

MAX & Star Awards

Who We Are

A founder-led builder. One owner. One standard.

Rivendale Homes is a luxury custom and signature home builder based in Austin, Texas. We build exquisitely crafted homes — designed to be beautiful today and built to last generations. It is the kind of work that takes a lifetime to learn, and the depth of our founder's experience is the reason we can deliver it.

Chris Peterson built his first home in 1994. He brought Rivendale Homes to Austin in 2011 — and across thirty-two years of homebuilding and more than 1,000 homes delivered, the company has remained under the same continuous ownership, with the same name on the door.

We are vertically integrated where it matters: in-house teams for estimating, purchasing, construction, design, sales, and warranty. There are no handoffs to strangers. We build where Austin actually lives — Allandale, Tarrytown, Westlake, Zilker, Northwest Hills, Rosedale, Barton Hills, Balcones — in the desirable, established neighborhoods that have defined the character of this city for generations. We build where our buyers want to live, not where it's easiest to find land.

What defines a Rivendale home is not its price. It is the intentionality of every decision made along the way — and the fact that those decisions have been refined across three decades of building.

Who We Are

Chris Peterson.

Founder · President · Owner

Chris began his career in real estate in 1982. In 1994, Chris founded Rivendale Homes — and for thirty-two years without interruption, he has been building luxury homes ever since.

Rivendale was a family business from day one. Chris built it in Sonoma County, California, and built it well. At the company's peak, Rivendale was delivering more than 200 homes a year and approaching $75 million in annual revenue — making it one of the most successful private homebuilders in Northern California. During those years, Chris served on the executive team and board of directors of the local Home Builders Association, earning the kind of peer recognition that does not get handed out lightly.

In 2011, he made a choice few builders at his level ever make: he started over. Drawn by Austin and by Texas's genuine respect for the people who build its homes, Chris moved his family and his company to Central Texas — and began building in the established, character-defining neighborhoods of Austin. Fifteen years later, he is the current President of the Austin Infill Coalition, an organization of homebuilding industry professionals, an office he has held across multiple non-consecutive terms. Twice in two markets, his peers have asked him to lead.

Chris is a father of five. He walks the sites. He answers the phone. He reads The Checklist Manifesto with his team. He is involved in nearly every part of this business — not because he has to be, but because thirty-two years in, he is still as passionate about a well-built home as he was when he framed the first one. When something needs to be made right on a Rivendale home, it is made right — without negotiation, without deflection, and without the homeowner having to fight for it.

"After a thousand homes, I still walk every site. Some habits are worth keeping."

— Chris Peterson, Founder & President

The Rivendale Standard

How a Rivendale home gets built — and why that's the whole product.

Anyone can promise quality during a sales conversation. What we deliver is the operational discipline behind it: systematized care, refined over thirty years, visible in artifacts you can hold in your hand.

A 120+ point inspection protocol.

Every Rivendale home moves through more than 120 inspection points across the build — construction inspections paired with quality walkthroughs at every phase, before the keys are ever handed over. Most builders don't document this work. We publish ours, because we want clients to see exactly what care looks like.

Artifact — published inspection checklist on every build

Independent third-party inspections.

Most of our homes are reviewed by licensed, independent third-party inspectors before closing — and we happily share their reports with our buyers. These are the same independent inspectors our buyers themselves hire, and their verdict is one of the most credible signals in the category. We have nothing to hide, and we never have.

Artifact — published inspection checklist on every build

A vetted, long-relationship trade network.

We do not chase low bids. Our framers, plumbers, electricians, and finish carpenters have been with us for years — many for over a decade. New vendors don't walk onto a Rivendale job. The discipline is straightforward: when we control procurement and partnerships, we control quality.

Artifact — published inspection checklist on every build

An in-house warranty department.

Warranty at Rivendale is a department, not a footnote. Requests are submitted directly on our website and answered by people whose names appear in our client reviews. When the right thing extends beyond the formal warranty, we do the right thing anyway. We have a track record of it.

Artifact — published inspection checklist on every build

The Rivendale Standard

Built by a family. For the families who live in our homes.

Rivendale has been a family business from the very beginning. Today, three of Chris's children have chosen careers alongside their father — each accomplished in their own right, each proud of what Chris has built, and each proud to be part of it. That dynamic — a founder whose work is so deeply respected that his own family chooses to be part of it — says something no credential or award can fully capture. At Rivendale, family is not a footnote in the company story. It is the company story.

Who We Are