We build mountain homes for steep lots, serious snow, and short seasons. Twenty years of custom home building across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, now based twenty minutes down the hill in Sandpoint.
Dihedral Builders is led by Chad Gailey, who has spent roughly twenty years building custom homes across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Most of that work happened on the sites other contractors pass on — steep slopes, waterfront, island lots reachable only by barge. A Schweitzer lot, with its grade and its snow, is exactly the kind of ground we know how to build on.
We put down roots in Sandpoint in 2020 and now run a permanent office at 213 Hard Pack Lane, with Idaho contractor registration 4181115. Our completed portfolio is Washington work — we won't pretend otherwise — and our first Idaho build, the Selle Valley Custom near Sandpoint, is under way now. What we're bringing to the mountain is the craft: two decades of building well in hard places, applied to the Panhandle.
Every project runs design-build with a single point of contact. We work with preferred independent designers, architects, and engineers, and we bring personally vetted trades. Our reputation is built on finishing on time, on budget, and on 5.0-star reviews.
Full custom homes and chalets designed for life at a ski area — roofs shaped to shed snow, structures engineered for the loads this elevation demands, and envelopes built to hold up through alpine winters and dry summers.
Foundations cut into grade, retaining, drainage, and access planning on lots most builders won't quote. Building where other contractors pass has been the core of our work for twenty years.
We coordinate preferred independent designers, architects, and engineers, then build with trades we've personally vetted. You deal with one builder from first sketch to final walkthrough.
Schweitzer is a ski-mountain community above Sandpoint, and it builds differently than the valley floor. Lots near the village sit close to services and neighbors; mid-mountain parcels trade convenience for grade, trees, and views across Lake Pend Oreille. Either way, most buildable ground up here is steep, and the house has to be designed into the slope rather than dropped on top of it.
The mountain road sets the rhythm of construction. Getting crews, concrete, and materials up switchbacks — and doing it around winter conditions — takes real logistics planning. We schedule the heavy site work and the weather-in of the shell around the season, so a Schweitzer project doesn't stall in January waiting on decisions that should have been made in June.
Then there's the snow itself. A Schweitzer mountain home needs roof geometry that sheds where you want it to shed — not onto decks, entries, or propane lines — structure engineered for the snow loads at this elevation, and exterior materials that can take freeze-thaw year after year. This is the kind of building we've done for two decades, and it's why we came to North Idaho.
I can't say enough good about Chad Gailey and the Dihedral team. I designed my home on a sketch pad and presented Chad with all kinds of ideas and challenges. Chad met each idea with enthusiasm and counseled me beautifully on exactly how to achieve what I was after. With expertise and know-how, Chad turned my lifelong ideas to reality and did so with an eagle eye for efficiency, timing, cost and budget. Throughout the process Chad was a great partner and teacher. Even though we were in the middle of COVID and started mid-winter, Chad turned my dream home into reality, within the timeframe and budget I asked for. Always good natured, always supportive and always honest, I couldn't have asked for more.
Rane MacDonough · Google review
Snow drives almost every decision. The structure has to be engineered for the snow loads at elevation, the roof has to shed predictably and away from entries and decks, and the envelope has to handle hard freeze-thaw cycles. Dihedral Builders plans for all of that at the design stage, not as a fix later.
The realistic approach is sequencing, not bravado. We aim to complete excavation, foundations, and framing so the shell is weathered in before deep winter, then keep interior trades working when the mountain road makes heavy deliveries impractical. A Schweitzer schedule is built around the season from day one.
Not yet, and we'd rather tell you that straight. Our completed custom homes are in Washington — twenty years of steep-slope, waterfront, and island construction — and our first Idaho project, the Selle Valley Custom near Sandpoint, is in progress now. Our office is in Sandpoint, twenty minutes from the mountain.
That is the work we look for. Slopes, tight access, and difficult ground are where Dihedral Builders has spent most of the last twenty years, and a hard lot at Schweitzer often holds the best views on the mountain. Bring us the lot before you write it off.
We're based at 213 Hard Pack Lane in Sandpoint, twenty minutes from the mountain. Call (208) 714-0250 and walk the site with us before the snow flies.
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