Meet Lucas McDonald from Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, Newfoundland

Family means everything to Lucas McDonald, a homebuilder just outside of St. John’s, Newfoundland. That extends to the way he does business—and even to what he builds.

Lucas McDonald is proud to be president of Andrew McDonald General Contractor Ltd. The name of the firm comes from his father, who passed away too early—at the age of 60—in 2018.

Lucas, now 29, had about ten years working for his father. Lucas’s skill set can be traced back to work he did for his father in that formative decade: labouring work, carpentry, driving, doing the paperwork. And making good decisions. “Pretty well everything I know, I learned it in the family business,” Lucas says.

Andrew McDonald worked in the St. John’s area as a contractor for some 40 years. He worked in the welding business for a little bit, then became a full-on homebuilder and renovator. Lucas has kept the same mix of homebuilding and renovation in the firm under his presidency.

Lucas will travel throughout the Avalon Peninsula, about 100 kilometres wide in most places, to build houses. The peninsula is not only home to the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s, but is also home to 270,000 people. And Newfoundland—like the other Atlantic provinces—is fertile ground for custom homebuilders.

Not that Lucas and Andrew were averse to subdivision houses, either. “We did a subdivision out by the (St. John’s) airport when I started working with my father. Nothing crazy, about 15 homes. And we built a big condominium—eight storeys—in Paradise (just to the west of St. John’s) around that time, too.” Andrew taught Lucas to think big.

But not too big. “I don’t want to be too big,” says Lucas. “Some contractors do 50 or 60 houses a year. However, our goal is to build quality projects instead of mass production.”

One of the de-stressors that Lucas relies on is his hardworking employees. “I have seven guys on staff, including two lead carpenters, a tile layer, a plasterer/painter, a couple of helpers, and office help.” And Lucas himself.

At a time when some contractors are finding the new home market a bit slow—owing to the multiple interest rate hikes—the St. John’s metropolitan area has not suffered as much. “We’ve not experienced a slowdown,” Lucas says.

One of the projects that Lucas has going right now is his own home, being built for him and his partner, Ashley. (The house is shown in the photos accompanying this article.)

As his father was, Lucas is still in the renovations business. “I do ‘all of the above,’” Lucas says, meaning kitchens, bathrooms, basements, and house additions. Unlike contractors in some areas of Canada, Lucas has not seen his renovations business increasing while his homebuilding is decreasing.

Part of that stability may be the affordability that Lucas tries to build into his projects, while still maintaining high quality. At Pouch Cove (a nearby community), he’s building six split-level homes with three bedrooms and two baths that will sell for $350,000 to $400,000. That part of the market is unaffected—mostly—by the interest rate increases, Lucas says.

When it comes to homebuilding, Lucas’s is a design-build firm, at heart. “A lot of the time, clients will say, ‘We don’t know what we want.’ So, we start with a rough square footage and determine a rough price from that. Then we design it up. We send it out to a few designers we work with to design the exterior.”

When it comes to building supply stores, Lucas is partial to nearby Capital Home Building Centre, in Paradise. The store opened in June 2022 and “they’ve been most welcoming,” Lucas says. “They are really good, have fair prices, and good payment terms. A great, great dealer.”

Meet Lucas McDonald from Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, Newfoundland

Family means everything to Lucas McDonald, a homebuilder just outside of St. John’s, Newfoundland. That extends to the way he does business—and even to what he builds.

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