Jumping into home building with no real construction experience, backed only by a marketing background, seemed manageable at first. Chasewood Homes had a strong opening run, building semi-custom homes and even landing an invitation to a local Street of Dreams showcase, with a pre-sale to a small-town mayor along the way.
Where It All Went Wrong
The business unraveled over something deceptively basic: with roughly 22 custom homes in progress, the person responsible for ordering lumber and trusses failed to keep up, causing massive construction delays, furious customers, and banks pulling financing. Revenue collapsed, and the business ultimately closed with a Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing.
Starting Over — and Getting It Right
Rather than walk away, the response was to take responsibility: meeting personally with affected customers, helping them navigate completion plans, and eventually co-founding a new company, Stanbrooke Custom Homes, with a CPA partner who handled finance and operations while marketing and sales stayed the focus — effectively the role of a Fractional Marketing Director, formalized into a partnership. That division of strengths, and real financial discipline from day one, is what let the second attempt actually work. It mirrors what the best Fractional CMO engagements look like — specialized leadership applied to one function with clear accountability.