The Team
Meet Robin Nielsen & the Mavericks Builders Team
Robin Nielsen and her team deliver full-service bespoke construction with more than thirty years of award-winning work across San Francisco, Marin, the Peninsula, the East Bay, and the Napa Valley — led by a USGBC LEED for Homes pioneer who helped define green building in America.
The Career
From a San Francisco craft to a region-wide practice.
The Mavericks Builders Team
Robin Nielsen leads a team of skilled craftspeople, specialty subcontractors, and construction professionals who bring every project to life. Our team brings expertise across green building, fire-resistant construction, structural systems, and cutting-edge materials.
Robin Nielsen began in San Francisco, learning the trade on the city's most demanding sites — tight lots, steep grades, century-old framing, and clients who expected the work to be flawless. The city teaches a builder discipline, and it became the foundation of everything the team has built since.
Early in the sustainable-building movement, Robin did pioneering work with the US Green Building Council. Her own San Francisco home became the demonstration project from which the LEED for Homes guidelines were written — putting the team years ahead of the codes that would eventually make green building the standard.
Three decades of award-winning builds followed. Pacific Heights remodels, Marin hillside homes, Peninsula and East Bay custom construction, and a second set of accolades in the Napa Valley — Robin and her team became the builders discerning clients call when a project can't afford a misstep, earning the trust that only comes from work still standing exactly as it was drawn.
Today Robin and her team run Mavericks Builders as a full-service practice spanning San Francisco, Marin, the Peninsula, the East Bay, and the Napa Valley — one of the few teams of general contractors who genuinely know the whole region and build with equal authority across all of it.
Talk to our team about your projectThe LEED Pioneer
She didn't just build green. She helped define what green building means.
In the early days of sustainable construction, Robin Nielsen partnered with the US Green Building Council on a project that would shape green building across America.
Her San Francisco home served as the demonstration project from which the LEED for Homes guidelines were written — a program that has since certified over 200,000 homes nationwide. Robin didn't just build green. She helped define what green building means. She holds published documentation from the USGBC confirming her project's role in establishing the LEED for Homes program.
The US Green Building Council Wrote
This is one of the most important residential projects in the U.S.
The Record
Three decades. The credentials to show for it.
A female-led team in an old-boys'-club industry — and one of Northern California's most decorated.
USGBC LEED for Homes Pioneer — Published Documentation
Gold Award — Best Home Builder, Napa Valley
Gold Award — Best Commercial Builder, Napa Valley (2 consecutive years)
Silver Award — Best Deck Builder, Napa Valley
Silver Award — Best Commercial Builder, Napa Valley
California General Contractor License #1042971
30+ Years Construction Experience
Female-Owned Business
Serving SF, Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Peninsula & East Bay
The Philosophy
How we build.
We've never believed a bespoke home should be a black box. From the first conversation, we tell our clients exactly what's being built, why, what it costs, and what to expect next — because trust is earned in plain language, not in surprises.
Everything we build is drawn before it's framed. Every assembly, every transition, every detail is decided in advance, so nothing is left for the field to improvise. That discipline is what San Francisco taught us, and it's what our team carries onto every site we run, from a city hillside to a vineyard estate.
And we build for the long run. A home should perform, endure, and protect the people inside it. After thirty years, the work that means the most to us is the work still standing exactly as it was drawn.
A home should perform, endure, and protect the people inside it. Everything else is decoration.
Why the Bay Area
From the city's edge to the valley floor.
San Francisco made us builders. The wine country made us regional ones.
Our roots are urban — the fog, the grades, the unforgiving lots that demand a contractor get it right the first time. That's where the team learned to read a site, run a trade crew, and deliver finish work that survives a client's closest inspection. San Francisco is still where our standards come from.
But the same clients who trusted us in the city kept asking us to build in Marin, the Peninsula, the East Bay, and up in Napa and Sonoma — second homes, estates, places to slow down. We came to know wine country as intimately as we know the city: its light, its soils, its fire seasons, and the particular way a hillside estate has to be built to last. Bridging the whole region isn't a marketing line. It's simply where thirty years have taken us — and why we can build with equal authority on a San Francisco hillside or a Napa Valley vineyard.
Work with our team on your project →
Tell Robin and the team about your home, your site, and your timeline. Thirty years of full-service bespoke construction across the Bay Area and Napa Valley, on your project — consultations are complimentary and candid.