A Southwest Montana builder, from here.

Frontier Building Group is a 2023 company run by someone who's been building for more than a decade and working for himself since 2018. Dan Frey has managed every phase of a house, many times over: coordinating with the power company on the line run, the driller on the well, the county on permits, the subs on sequence, all the way to handing over the keys. He came up as a craftsman woodworker before he built houses, and the range since then covers high-end custom homes, remodels of buildings over a century old, pole barns and ag buildings built for Montana winters, and more framing than he'd care to count. He has also taken over stalled builds that another contractor couldn't finish, which means reading what was done and how it got there before fixing it, and that teaches you more about how houses go wrong than anything else.

He grew up in Whitehall. He builds in Gallatin, Jefferson, Madison and Park counties because that's home.

We started Frontier Building Group to give people a better way to build. A clear process from the first call to the keys, numbers you can count on, and a crew that builds it right because it's your home, not just a job. We have a passion for building, and there's nothing better than handing someone the keys to the thing they'd been picturing for years.

Laid back, as contractors go. You're paying for the house you want, so when you change your mind about a light fixture or a door swing, we don't reach for the change-order pad. We put the real changes in writing so nobody is surprised at the end, and we leave the small stuff alone.

The budget is the part we take seriously. A house we built in Townsend came with a hard number from day one, and the owners were still working out what they wanted as we went. We hit the number. Most projects don't, these days. Everyone walked away happy, and staying under budget was the bonus on top.

It starts with an overview call about your land, what you want, your budget and your timing. If it's a fit, we walk the site. Then we put real numbers on it before anyone draws anything, so the plans match the money. You pick fixed price or cost-plus depending on the job, we get on the schedule with a deposit, and payments follow the work.

From there it's dirt work, well and septic, foundation, framing, dry-in, systems, insulation, finishes, walkthrough, keys. If you're out of state, we handle the site, the county and the subs, and send photos and updates so you always know where things stand.

• Overview call
• Site visit if it's a fit
• Budget before drawings
• Fixed price or cost-plus
• Every real change in writing
• Photo updates

Custom homes on your land, from a simple ranch to a high-end build. Barndominiums as a shell, a shell with the site work and slab, or move-in ready. Post-frame buildings, pole barns and ag buildings. Remodels and additions, including buildings that have been standing for a hundred years. Standalone trade work when the schedule allows. Spec homes for developers who don't have time to run the build.

A lot of barndominiums are a Texas building dropped in Montana: a shallow slab, a shell, a house framed inside. That works where the ground doesn't freeze. Here the slab heaves, the shell sweats when it's warm inside and below zero out, and the cold bleeds straight through to the drywall.

We build them as a hybrid. The shop can be post-frame or steel, whichever fits the job and the budget. The living side is framed and insulated like a house, because it is one, and separated from the shop so the two don't fight each other. Under all of it, footings below the frost line or a full foundation, depending on the ground. Trusses, engineered lumber and sealed sheathing where they matter. Metal roof, metal or board-and-batten siding, so it still looks like the barndo you wanted.

Every site is different. We'll sit down with you and go through the ways it could be built and what each one costs.

• Post-frame or steel shop
• House side framed and insulated
• Footings below frost or full foundation
• We walk you through the options and costs

We build to the engineer's plans and then some. Footings sized for the soil, foundations to frost depth, engineered lumber where it matters, sheathing that seals the house, roofing that lasts in our weather. We supply and order the materials so the list matches the plans and the delivery matches the schedule. The brands we use are on the Partners & products page.

We also write our own software. Dan builds the tools our crews use for takeoffs, material lists and job tracking, so the plan, the lumber order and the schedule all agree before anyone picks up a saw.

We keep our own crew of carpenters for the homes we build. The same people frame it who trim it out, and they know how the house is supposed to come together because they were there when it started. The trades we don't do ourselves go to subs we've worked beside before. One builder runs the schedule and the budget, and answers for all of it.

Our work carries a one-year workmanship warranty. If something we built isn't right in the first year, call us and we'll come make it right. That's on top of the manufacturer warranties on what goes into the house, and a lot of those are long: engineered lumber, metal roofing, windows and siding often carry 25 years to lifetime. Those pass to you at closing. Longer workmanship coverage can be worked into the contract if you want it.