Adam Talbot is the owner of Talbot Custom Homes and a Nonahood resident. 

Nonahood News: What is your job?

Adam Talbot: I am the owner of Talbot Custom Homes. I’m a general contractor specializing in accessory dwelling units, renovations and new home construction. I have three main pillars of how I operate: respect, trust and transparency. I bring those three pillars to construction for all the people I work with so they can feel better about their project.

NHN: What does your day-to-day schedule look like?

AT: It’s a myriad of things. I can do sales calls or construction work. I’m all over the place all the time, which is neat. Morning time is usually all construction related. Going to the different job sites, things like that, some communication with homeowners. Afternoon doing estimates, doing sales calls. My day never ends, only between 5 and 10. We have a 2.5-year-old. Her name is Madeline, and we square away five hours of time for her and then from like 10 to 2 we usually continue to work, so it’s just an ongoing day.  

NHN: What are the most rewarding/challenging aspects of your job?

AT: Most rewarding aspect is building someone else’s dream. That is cool, and being able to offer them actual opportunities for insight and input and realizing those inputs while we’re building is neat. This is new to Florida because people have just had to get what they got, which is not great. Being able to offer different avenues but at a fair price point is great. It’s great to know they get a high-quality product at the end, something they can be proud of. I always tell all my clients I only want to get a call back from you for a beer or cookout. Never for a warranty call or anything like that, haha. Being able to coordinate all the work exactly with homeowner specifications and making sure what they see in their head is what we put down on paper is probably one of the most challenging aspects, but it’s also the most rewarding at the same time.

NHN: Do you have any interesting hobbies, collections or interests?

AT: Outside of my family and my daughter, sports are what I love to do. I’m a big NBA watcher; I used to do a lot of baseball and football during the wintertime. Now, most of my time is taken up by caring for her. I also read a lot to understand different perspectives and human nature. 

NHN: Where do you see yourself in the next five years?

AT: With COVID happening and then things being so uncertain, we figured three years is probably the max we could plan for. We’d like to scale up quite a bit. We have big goals for the next three years to become a bigger company, to be able to have a bigger share of the market, mainly in the accessory dwelling unit and renovation space. When I say renovations, typically we don’t do the smaller ones. We’ll do whole home renovations of $75,000, a $100,000 and above. For the company itself, I’m hiring a director of operations come February 1st who will help me with the construction side because we are getting busier. But otherwise, for the next five years, it’s just working and grinding and doing the right thing for all my clients. 

NHN: What brought you to Lake Nona and when did you move here?

AT: I’ve lived in Laureate Park for about four years. Our four-year anniversary would be the 1st week of February. We love it here. There are a lot of like-minded folks but with a lot of different perspectives, so it’s been great to be part of something like that. The diversity here is great. We can’t picture living anywhere else.

NHN: Where are you from originally?

AT: I’m originally from New Hampshire. I moved down here almost 11 years ago, but I started out in Punta Gorda. From Punta Gorda, I realized if I wanted to do anything different, I’d have to move to a city. We moved from Punta Gorda up to Orlando about 11 years ago. I came down here because the last year I was in New Hampshire it snowed 119 inches and that’s too much. Plus, I was in the Marine Corps, so I just got back from Iraq a year or two prior to that, and my body never reacclimated to being in the negatives when it was like 135 degrees Fahrenheit every day for six months. 

NHN: What would you say to anyone who is considering a move to Lake Nona?

AT: Don’t wait. If it’s something you’re looking at and you get that good feeling right away, that’s the right feeling.