By Design
Developer Jessica Underwood Crafts Custom-Built Career
By Nancy Luse
Photography By Turner Photography Studio
For the past seven years, Jessica Underwood has scratched an itch for people seeking a home that is not cookie-cutter, but instead causes them to stop in their tracks when they see a project with a JR Capital Build sign out front. Her most recent project is the Mews on Maxwell, five townhouses between East 4th and 5th streets with rooftop terraces paired with three floors of amenities below.
Previously working as an attorney, Underwood is now as comfortable in a hard hat as she is the lipstick-red stilettos worn recently while showing off the Mews. Much has been accomplished in her short building career, including being named the 2020 Builder of the Year by the Frederick County Building Industry Association. Over the years her company has built 17 new houses and tackled 30 full-unit renovations.
She didn’t step lightly into this line of work.
“I went back to school,” Underwood says, taking “building classes and theory” and learning all she could about everything from building codes to water and HVAC systems. She enrolled with SCORE, a free business mentoring program, and she watched and listened. Maybe not so much at the start.
“In the first and second years there were a lot of screaming matches,” she freely admits, with workers walking off the job. Did they come back? “Some did, some didn’t. It has taken me seven years to learn to be a good leader … good leaders study other leaders, learning how to motivate people, how to run meetings, how to bring out the best in people. These guys are so proud of their trade” and I respect and admire that. “There’s a construction side, but also a people side.”
Underwood says she’s often asked what it’s like being a woman in a male-dominated business. “I love it,” she says, adding that she believes that with a preponderance of men belonging to sports teams, “they are better able to understand team dynamics.” She contrasts that to her own favorites of golf, tennis and yoga, where participation is often a solo pursuit.
As a woman building houses, she believes she’s able to bring to the design elements that many women look for—and don’t they ultimately make the final decision? She is aware of the need for closets, a pretty bathroom and floors that are easy to maintain. Underwood appreciates a knockout kitchen, even if it is not her favorite room. “I’m a big fan of Uber Eats.”
The single mom has support from her kids. “The company is really all of ours,” she says, with them jumping in as needed. “But if HGTV comes on they all say, ‘Can we turn the channel now?’”
The Maxwell Avenue project took three years from start to finish, with actual construction taking less than a year. “We had a lot of neighborhood opposition,” says Underwood, who recalls attending 10 Historic Preservation Commission meetings. Redevelopment plans for the property, formerly a line of rental garages, was originally proposed for 10 units. “We compromised with five,” she says, with some neighbors telling her “I actually love it,” or “It turned out way better than I thought it would.”
Looking ahead, Underwood says there are fewer empty spots in the city, so she’s looking at government contract work, specifically a project in the Washington, D.C.,
Maryland and Virginia area to build military housing. She also wants to continue her work as a mentor, taking on one woman a quarter to teach and encourage.