Mill City Design + Build is owned and run by Matt Schafer and Brian Noy. They met in 2004 while meditating at a local Buddhist center, and when not building professionally, spent much of their free time over next decade volunteering to build at retreat centers across the country. In 2015, they worked with a large group of friends to purchase a 1915 house near Powderhorn Park and after work every evening and weekend, they guided a group of volunteers to remodel the place into Minneapolis Diamond Way Meditation Center. They had so much for doing this, they left their jobs to start Mill City Design + Build in 2016, and also hired some of other friends they volunteered with.
After a couple years of them digging every post hole, hanging every sheet of drywall, hanging every cabinet, and basically doing every task on any kind of project, they started hiring slowly, assembling a team of people who love to build and really care for our clients home. Currently, there are seven employees who do all the demo, framing, finish work, and painting, and a crew of subs (this tends to be a larger in-house team than most general contractors who sub out work to other companies) who are equally wonderful to collaborate with.
Matt Schafer and family
Matt Schafer grew up in a small town near Appleton, Wisconsin and first learned how to build after college while in Maui, Hawaii, where he spent years working on new construction. After meeting his wife, he returned to Minneapolis where he spent most of a decade as working for multiple high-end remodeling companies. He's inspired by challenges presented by old homes, and how to take underused or outdated spaces and create fresh and beautifully crafted places for families to enjoy.
Brian Noy
Brian Noy grew up on his family’s farm near Mankato and spent his youth and high school career studying the trades. He ended up in Minneapolis to study agriculture and ended up working on urban farming projects and non- profits while always building professionally on evenings and weekends. After finishing his Masters in Business Administration at Augsburg University, he managed one last non-profit project before jumping full time into construction in 2016. For the first couple of years he got enjoy the hard labor of it, before hiring enough other talented builders and he began focusing on designing, sales, and project management.
Since starting the company, they’ve almost had a duplex or triplex on the side under construction, using the project to create a nice little rental portfolio, and using it to keep the crew busy in between our client’s projects. We know old houses well, as we have to know how to maintain these beautiful old things. Our collection includes houses from the 1887, 1900, 1909, 1912, 915, 1917, 1925, 1975, and 1990. We love them (well sometimes, maybe we hate them too), and are committed to making sure they thrive and function well for another 100 years!