Building the Pinta Residence, from an Empty Lot to a Finished Home
From an empty Coconut Grove lot to a finished single storey residence: how the Pinta Residence in Bay Heights went up, phase by phase, the same way every Luxom home does, start to finish.
Luxom Studio · LUXOM Developments
· 5 min read · Last reviewed
Key takeaways
- The empty lot to finished home reel compresses site work, a hurricane rated shell, and a stone and timber material story at 10 Pinta Rd into seconds. The real sequence ran across every trade, coordinated by the same team from day one.
- Pinta is a single storey, 2,569 square foot residence, so the layout answers to a landscape plan first, an L-shaped footprint that wraps a pool and a timber pergola rather than stacking a second floor.
- The white travertine, European oak and teak palette that defines the finished house was locked during design, long before any of it went on a wall or a deck.
- One team, architecture and construction by Luxom with SBB Arquitectura, interiors by Margaret Bissu, designed, built and finished the house end to end, the same reason the pool build behind it never read as a separate project.
- The program reads as one continuous volume: foyer, living, dining and kitchen open straight onto the pool deck, with the primary suite, two guest rooms and a den completing the plan.
From the build
The reel we posted of 10 Pinta Rd compresses an empty Coconut Grove lot into a finished single storey residence in the time it takes to scroll past it. Here is what actually happened between an empty lot and the house on Pinta in that last frame.
Site work and layout come first, staked against a landscape plan, not just a footprint
Every Luxom build starts the same way an empty lot photo suggests it should: with the site, not the structure. At 10 Pinta Rd, in the Bay Heights enclave beside the Vizcaya gardens, that meant surveying the lot, confirming setbacks and drainage, then staking an L-shaped footprint that wraps a pool and a timber pergola instead of a conventional rectangle. A single storey plan on 2,569 square feet has to earn its layout on paper first, since every room's relationship to the garden is decided before any framing begins.
Clearing and grading come next, and this is the shortest phase of the whole sequence relative to how much screen time it gets in a reel. A cleared, graded and staked lot in a residential Bay Heights setting typically comes together in days once permits are approved, which is why it reads as the fastest cut in the clip: it is the fastest phase in real life too.
The structural shell and framing answer to Miami-Dade before they answer to the design
Pinta's Modern Tropical design leans on full height glass aimed at the garden from nearly every room, open sightlines from the living space straight through to the pool deck, and a single storey plan that has no second floor to hide structure behind. None of that is possible without a shell engineered first for Florida's Building Code, which sets wind load and impact standards for high velocity hurricane zones like Miami-Dade County well above what most of the country builds to.
That means the glazing that makes the house look effortless in a photo is, structurally, some of the most engineered material in it: impact rated glass and framing sized to hold up in a storm, not swapped in afterward as an upgrade. The concrete and steel frame gets reviewed and inspected in stages before a single window goes in, and that review is a real driver of schedule, not a formality.
Permitting and Florida Building Code review set the real pace of the schedule
Permitting and code review is where a Miami-Dade project either stays on schedule or loses months, and it happens well before framing is visible in any clip. Every structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing set for Pinta had to clear plan review against Miami-Dade's wind load and impact glazing requirements before a permit was issued, and each major phase after that, foundation, structural shell, rough in, was inspected again before the next one could start. That review cycle is not a footnote to the build. On a single storey house with this much glass facing the garden, it is one of the biggest levers on how long the whole sequence takes.
Interior finishes, travertine and oak, get decided long before they go on a wall
The stone and timber story at Pinta, white travertine laid in a plate and stripe pattern with warmer travertine accents, European oak floors and teak decking, was chosen during design, not on site during finishing. Grey gravel and mulch carry that same restraint out into the tropical landscape, so the interior and the yard read as one continuous material decision rather than a house and a separate landscaping package.
That sequencing matters because specialty stone and decking carry lead times measured in weeks, sometimes months, and those lead times are frequently what stretches a project's calendar, not the framing or the concrete work most people picture when they think about construction taking time. Ordering travertine the week it is needed is how a finish schedule slips. Ordering it during design, with the rest of the palette already locked, is how it does not.
Pull quote
Pinta was never a house first and a landscape second. The plan gives its center to the garden, and every room is built to look at it.
The program comes together as one continuous volume, not room by room
Inside Pinta: the foyer, living and dining room and kitchen open as one continuous volume onto the pool deck, with no walls breaking the sightline from the front door to the water. A den and office, the primary suite and two guest bedrooms complete the plan, all on the same single level, alongside a pergola terrace with its own outdoor kitchen, a lounge deck and the beach entry pool. Each of those spaces was framed, wired, plumbed and finished on the same overall schedule, so nothing in the house was waiting on anything else by the time the finishes went in.
That is the part a reel cannot really show: not the individual phases, which are visible enough in the footage, but the coordination that keeps a foyer, a primary suite and a pool deck all finishing in the same window instead of trickling in one room at a time over months. The empty lot to finished home cut works as a clip because the build behind it was run as one project, by one team, architecture and construction by Luxom with SBB Arquitectura, interiors by Margaret Bissu, not a dozen separate ones sharing an address. That same coordination is what let the pool and pergola behind the house come together on the same schedule as the rest of the build.
If you want the fuller version of this sequence, our guide to building a custom luxury home in Miami, start to finish walks the general phases Pinta followed, and our breakdown of a full development budget covers what a build at this scale actually costs across those same phases. To see Pinta alongside Luxom's other Coconut Grove work, visit Coconut Grove's four Luxom residences, watch the full reel on Instagram, or reach out through contact to talk through what a build like this looks like on your own lot.
Pull quote
Pinta was never a house first and a landscape second. The plan gives its center to the garden, and every room is built to look at it.
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Questions about luxury home construction Coconut Grove Miami
01How long does a project like Pinta take from an empty lot to a finished home?
A custom single storey residence of this scale in Miami typically runs well over a year from land to move in once design, engineering, permitting and construction are counted together, a range we break down in building a custom luxury home in Miami, start to finish. Pinta followed that same sequence: design and engineering first, then permitting against Miami-Dade's code, then the structural build, then the finishes that took it from a shell to the residence in the reel. It was completed in 2021.
02What makes Pinta's single storey design different from Luxom's other Coconut Grove homes?
Most Luxom residences in Coconut Grove stack living space across two floors. Pinta stays at one level by design, an L-shaped plan on a 2,569 square foot footprint that wraps around a turquoise pool and a timber pergola with its own outdoor kitchen instead of gaining a second story. Keeping the house to one floor puts every room, the foyer, the living and dining space, the kitchen, the primary suite and two guest bedrooms, on the same plane as the garden it looks out on, which is a different design problem than a two story house solves. See more of the plan on our Pinta project page.
03What is actually inside the Pinta Residence in Bay Heights?
Pinta is a 4 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom, 2,569 square foot single storey residence at 10 Pinta Rd, in Miami's Bay Heights enclave beside the Vizcaya gardens. The foyer, living and dining room and kitchen open as one continuous volume onto the pool deck. A den and office, the primary suite and two guest bedrooms complete the plan, alongside a pergola terrace with its own outdoor kitchen, a lounge deck and the beach entry pool. Every one of those spaces was on the same permit set and the same construction schedule, which is why the reveal in the reel reads as one finished home rather than a house with rooms added later.
04What materials define Pinta's interior and exterior?
White travertine, laid in a plate and stripe pattern with warmer travertine accents, sets the stone base and runs from the foyer straight out to the pool deck without a hard material change. European oak floors and teak decking carry the timber warmth from the living spaces into the yard, while grey gravel and mulch ground the tropical landscape around the house. None of that palette was chosen on site. It was locked during design, months before a single slab of stone or plank of oak was installed, because imported stone and specialty decking carry lead times that move a schedule more than the framing does.
05Can you actually watch the Pinta build, not just read about it?
Yes. The empty lot to finished home sequence is posted as a reel on Instagram, and this article walks the phases the clip compresses into seconds. For the backyard and pool side of this same build, see how the pool at Pinta went from dirt to a finished turquoise pool, or reach out through contact to talk through what a build like this looks like on your own lot.
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Written by Luxom Studio · LUXOM Developments
The design and development studio behind LUXOM residences in Coconut Grove, Miami
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