Hillside lots that drop to the water, lake views that deserve the whole wall of glass — we build custom homes for Hope and East Hope from our office in nearby Sandpoint.
Chad Gailey has led Dihedral Builders through roughly twenty years of custom home building across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, most of it from Anacortes, Washington — waterfront, island lots, and steep sites where other contractors pass. Hope's hillsides above Lake Pend Oreille are the same kind of ground: hard to build on, worth every bit of the effort.
We've been putting down roots in Sandpoint since 2020, and the move is permanent — an office at 213 Hard Pack Lane, Idaho contractor registration 4181115, and our first Idaho project, the Selle Valley Custom, under construction now. Our completed homes are Washington work, and we say so plainly. What Hope gets is the craft we're bringing: two decades of difficult-site building, a short drive up Highway 200.
We run design-build with a single point of contact, working alongside preferred independent designers, architects, and engineers, and building with trades we've personally vetted. On time, on budget, 5.0-star reviews — that's the record we intend to keep in Idaho.
Custom homes oriented to Lake Pend Oreille — window walls placed for the view, outdoor spaces that work with the slope, and envelopes built for the weather that comes off the water.
Hope's best lots fall away fast toward the lake. We engineer stepped foundations, retaining, and drainage into the grade, and we plan access for steep driveways off Highway 200 before the first truck arrives.
From lot evaluation through final walkthrough, you work with one builder. We coordinate the designers, engineers, and vetted trades so a Hope project doesn't depend on you managing five relationships.
Hope and East Hope sit on the northeast shore of Lake Pend Oreille along Highway 200 — a tiny historic community strung between the hillside and the water. The lots that come available here tend to be steep, dropping from the road toward the shoreline, with views across some of the biggest open water in the Idaho Panhandle. Building well on them means treating the slope as the starting point of the design, not an obstacle to it.
Much of the existing housing is older cottage and cabin stock from the town's earlier eras, so a new custom home in Hope usually means either a rare open lot or replacing a structure that has reached the end of its life. Either way, the site work — foundations on grade, drainage that respects the neighbors downhill, access that works in winter — is where the project is won or lost.
There's also a practical truth about small towns: when the community is this size, a builder who shows up matters more than anywhere else. There's no hiding from a job half-done in Hope. We're twenty-some miles away in Sandpoint, we answer the phone, and we're on site when we say we will be. With the Sam Owen and Peninsula area just across the water, this corner of the lake is a place we expect to be building in for a long time.
I highly recommend Chad and Dihedral Builders. Their quality of work and attention to detail is far above any contractor I have ever worked with. Chad is easy to work with and communicates well. I give them an A+.
RR · Google review
If you are looking for top quality workmanship at affordable prices, Dihedral Builders fits the bill...
Lynn Newcomb · Google review
Yes — that's the ground we're best on. Dihedral Builders has spent twenty years building on steep and waterfront sites in Washington, and a Hope lot dropping from Highway 200 toward Lake Pend Oreille calls for the same skills: stepped foundations, engineered retaining, and drainage planned before design begins.
We start by standing on the lot and finding the sightlines worth building for, then work with independent designers and architects to place the main living spaces and glazing around them. In Hope that usually means living areas on the view side, service spaces against the hill, and outdoor rooms that step down the slope with the house.
Yes. Our permanent office is at 213 Hard Pack Lane in Sandpoint, a straightforward drive up Highway 200, and we treat Hope and East Hope as home territory rather than a remote job. In a town this small, a builder's presence is the whole reputation, and showing up is the part of the job we take most seriously.
Walk it with us before you plan anything. Call (208) 714-0250 or stop by our Sandpoint office — the drive up Highway 200 is a short one.
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