The Next Generation of a Family Business

For 34 years, Denlinger & Sons Builders has been building quality custom homes in Miami County, Ohio. Todd Denlinger's parents built the company, built its reputation, and handed him a name that meant something in the region. No two plans alike. No shortcuts. When Todd officially took over in 2020, months before COVID hit, he inherited both the business and the obligation to protect what it stood for.

The years that followed changed the economics of homebuilding. Material costs surged. Labor climbed. The price of a fully custom home moved out of reach for buyers in the $400,000–$600,000 range. Todd watched that market go underserved. In 2024 he launched Legacy Design Homes, a semi-production brand built to deliver the Denlinger quality standard to a broader group of buyers through a more scalable process.

"Quality is our number one core value. It's what our name has stood on in this area for over 30 years. When clients build a Legacy home, it's not a whole lot different than a custom home from Denlinger. It's just that the price is exposed up front."

— Todd Denlinger, President & Owner, Legacy Design Homes

Legacy Design Homes wasn't created to be the cheapest builder in the market. It was created to bring custom-level care into a more scalable model. But to do that, Todd needed more than a new brand. He needed a system to support it.

Legacy Design Had a Market. It Didn't Have a System.

Legacy Design launched before every process was fully defined. Plans came from different designers in different formats. Options weren't standardized. Pricing wasn't always available at the first meeting. A buyer would come in, point to one plan, ask for pieces of another, and suddenly the conversation looked a lot like a custom design session.

"We had unlimited plans. A client would come in and we'd try to morph this plan into that plan. We were just spinning our wheels, doing custom work with just different products."

— Todd Denlinger, President & Owner

That created problems across the business. Sales had to describe homes buyers couldn't see. Operations worked from plans that kept changing. And everything that had to happen before construction could begin: documentation, permits, pricing. It fell on a lean team doing it largely by hand.

The Bottleneck Before the Build

For Andy Draving, Legacy's Operations Manager, the problems started before construction and followed the home all the way into the field. Every home required a full documentation package built from scratch: electrical plans, flooring maps, quote breakdowns, permit-ready materials. Every outlet labeled. Every flooring transition mapped. And because plans weren't locked down, what made it into the field wasn't always what had been sold. When a plan quietly lost a closet between design and build, the first person to notice was often the homeowner pointing at a brochure that still showed it.

"Prior to Higharc, I would get a master plan and it would take me anywhere from 5 to 10 hours per house, going through and marking it out, creating an electrical, creating a flooring map, creating quotes, getting it permit-ready."

— Andy Draving, Operations Manager, Legacy Design Homes

The design cycle compounded the delay. After a buyer meeting, plans were redlined and sent to an outside drafter. Weeks later, revised plans would come back for review. More changes often followed. A process that should have taken days stretched to three or four weeks. For a growing builder, that delay pushed starts into the next quarter, and start delays don't just slow drafting, they slow revenue.

Looking for a Better Way

Todd first encountered Higharc in October 2024 through his NAHB Builder 20 group, where several builders he respected were already using the platform. He came looking for plan management, a way to bring Legacy Design's portfolio under one system. By January 2025, Legacy Design Homes was running on Higharc full-time.

One Plan Library. Every Department.

Today, Legacy Design's portfolio is centralized in Higharc: a dozen plans with set options, defined budgets, and pricing available at the first sales visit. That standardization changed how every part of the business operates.

In sales, what used to take three to four weeks of back-and-forth design revisions now happens in a single client meeting. In operations, Andy's pre-sale prep time dropped from 5–10 hours per home to 2–3 hours. Lot-specific construction documents are generated automatically from homeowner selections. In design, a new plan that once took one to two months through an outside drafter can now be built out in Studio and moved toward production in a week.

"Being able to spend less time with draftsmen, architects, designers. Higharc really allows me to spend time where my time should be spent: working on the business, not in the business."

— Todd Denlinger, President & Owner

From Contract to Start, Without the Wait

The impact compounds after the sale. Before Higharc, turning a contract into a construction-ready set of plans could take three to four months. Todd can see both tracks running right now: Higharc plans move to pre-construction the same week as the sale; plans still going through an outside drafter take months. The math is simple and the consequences are real.

"If we sell 40 homes and we're able to get one started in a week with Higharc. If we went back to our old way, it would take us three to four months sometimes before we could get a shovel in the ground. You're wondering why you only started 25 of the 40 you sold this year."

— Todd Denlinger, President & Owner

For Andy, the same system that eliminated the documentation grind also fixed the field problem. When dimensions, fireplace openings, and room sizes match every time, trades build faster with fewer questions. Vendors build routines. And Legacy can still offer personalization. It just happens within a system, not outside of one.

"Higharc has been instrumental because it simplifies our business. I no longer have to check that every plan matches. Now we have something to show homeowners and to stand behind."

— Andy Draving, Operations Manager, Legacy Design Homes

And because the same standardized plans reach the field, Legacy can still offer the personalization that differentiates it, without sacrificing the consistency that makes a production model work.

"Higharc allows us to still make the personalized changes homeowners want and put them on the plans, but we still have the consistency house to house. It's the best of both."

— Andy Draving, Operations Manager, Legacy Design Homes

What Buyers Couldn't See

Legacy Design offers twelve floor plans but only has one model home. Before Higharc, that's a gap Taja Salley, Legacy's Sales Manager, had to bridge every day, using photos, 2D drawings, homes under construction, and a lot of asking buyers to imagine.

"In order to really show somebody what they can buy without them being able to touch the product: it is challenging. You have to use photos, walk them through homes under construction, ask them to imagine a lot."

— Taja Salley, Sales Manager, Legacy Design Homes

Now Taja pulls up any of the twelve plans in Higharc Showroom, spins the home in 3D, removes the roof, steps through basement configurations with pricing at each tier. Buyers leave with a personalized brochure showing exactly what they selected. The shift isn't just visual. It's the trust that comes from a buyer seeing their specific home rather than a generic floor plan.

"It's the seeing what they can't see piece. As I'm asking them questions, they're painting me an imaginary picture. I can't paint one back. Higharc fills that in."

— Taja Salley, Sales Manager, Legacy Design Homes

The Upgrade Conversation Got Clearer

In Legacy Design's market, basements are common, but explaining the difference between a bathroom finish, a bedroom and bath, and a full living area on a flat plan is difficult. With Higharc, Todd and Taja can show each tier in 3D with pricing attached. Buyers can see the space, understand the layout, and connect the cost to what they're actually getting.

"Being able to show our clients what that finished basement looks like and how the pricing is tiered. It's really helped our sales and our upgrades."

— Todd Denlinger, President & Owner

Legacy Design has Higharc Showroom embedded on its website, so buyers can explore plans before their first meeting. They arrive knowing which plan they want, which options they're considering, and what they want to change, the qualifying conversation is already half done.

What the Nationals Can't Match

National builders have entered the Troy market with volume and pricing. What they can't offer is a buyer experience where someone configures their home in real time, walks out with a personalized rendering, and gets a finished product that looks different from every other home on the street. Legacy Design can build the same plan ten times and produce ten different houses.

"Our sales process incorporating Higharc is way more impactful. Not only are we saying we're quality from a building aspect. We're quality from a customer service aspect. We're handing them something more tangible."

— Taja Salley, Sales Manager, Legacy Design Homes

The Next Stage of Growth

Legacy Design Homes has exceeded its goals in each of its first two years. New land opportunities are in the pipeline and 2026 is shaping up to be the company's strongest year yet. More importantly, Legacy Design can now grow without proportionally increasing overhead. Todd doesn't need to add headcount at the same rate as homes. Higharc handles what used to require manual coordination at every step.

"I don't see us needing a whole slew of new staff members because we built 40 houses this year versus 25 last year. In terms of sales, design, and getting the house from sales to operations. We shouldn't have to hire anybody."

— Todd Denlinger, President & Owner

Todd's parents, who spent 30 years living every change order and communication demand that comes with custom homebuilding, ask him every day why he's still doing it. His answer is straightforward: clients who want a one-of-a-kind custom home still exist, and Denlinger and Sons has been the name they call in Miami County for 30 years. That's not going away. But Todd learned quickly that you can only do so many custom homes a year before the time, energy, and complexity crowd out everything else. Legacy Design is the branch for everyone else: buyers who want a quality home without the full custom process. Not a lesser product. A different one.