Alaina Money.

• Author: Walker, Cameron
• Position: MY TIME

Where is Alaina Money at 2 p.m. on a Saturday? The busy Garman Homes executive makes time for her Apex family through a weekend ritual of cooking with her daughters.

It's the weekend, and Alaina Money is in the kitchen with her three daughters, cracking eggs, sifting flour, and making the filling for the family's favorite dish saffron-scented baked ravioli. The weekend routine is a nod to her Italian heritage, and a subtle bribe to keep her kids close by.

During the week, Money, 41, is cooking up success as division president for Garman Homes, a Durham-based company started in 2007 by Jim Garman. The company's revenue doubled last year to $50 million with 180 home closings, compared with 95 in the previous year. Money credits the company's success to Fresh Paint, a new line of homes starting at less than $200,000.

WHAT DRAWS YOU TO BUILDING AS A PROFESSION?

It's probably the same thing as cooking. You start with basic ingredients and it's all about how you put things together. The combinations are infinite, and it's an opportunity to be creative and to connect with the homeowner.

Building a house for someone, whether you're the salesperson, the person who owns the company, the designer, or the actual person who manages the trades or swings the hammer, you know the home is a sacred space for somebody. It's where people celebrate their milestones and grieve their losses. Being part of that, no matter what part, is special.

WHAT DIFFERENTIATES GARNI AN HOMES FROM OTHER BUILDERS?

We like to pull the curtain back from the process. There's this wall that other homebuilders have with their clients, where they have to ask permission to go see their houses being built. Over the years, we've tried to break that wall down and invite the buyer onto the team as a collaborative partner. What we've learned is how to maintain the role of the expert and the sherpa, but we want them to be along for the adventure with us. That's helped us build deeper relationships with our buyers.

WHAT IS THE FRESH PAINT COLLECTION AND HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA?

Over the past several years, our homes had gotten more and more complex to build, and we were in this no-man's land of semi-custom. So Jim [Garman] thought that we should go back to our production-homebuilding roots. I thought, "Ugh, I don't want to have to wake...